Eight seconds. That’s how long a rider has to stay on a bull in order for it to be considered a “qualified ride.” If you want any chance of winning a Professional Bull Riders (PBR) competition, you must have a qualified ride. That seems like nothing, but depending on how you ride, when that eight seconds is up you could be a millionaire — or, in some extreme cases, dead. Despite the danger, young cowboys work their whole lives to compete in the rodeo.
Bull riding is a brutal sport, but I love watching it. That doesn’t square well with the rest of my identity. I’m not the model of a tough cowboy — I’m a bleeding heart leftie, I’ve never even ridden a horse, and being queer doesn’t help my case. I grew up with a lot of wannabe cowboys in my half-farm, half-suburb hometown in the duller part of Colorado. By 18, I was all too acquainted with the mean, backwards parts of Western culture, and I couldn’t wait to leave it for the bright lights of LA. Yet bull riding still hooked me. There’s something compelling about watching a man cling for dear life to a 2,000-pound animal, only to go flying through the air with his leather chaps and spurs shining under the stadium lights. It’s a show of human strength and resilience, an unbelievable feat that reflects the grit of ranchers and cattlemen. You forget all about politics and petty grievances during a moment like that.
I grew up going to county fairs and stock shows, but my parents rarely took me to the rodeo. It wasn’t until recently that I became truly interested in bull riding. If I had to explain why, I’d say it was because I was feeling homesick. Save for my music taste, I never considered myself “country” — but after moving to LA, my “country” quirks stood out, and I found myself missing the farmland, wildlife and Western wear of my home. My new friends, who hadn’t even heard of Hank Williams, poked fun at my jeans, boots and bolo ties. I started leaning into it, reclaiming the culture that had hurt me so much in the past. Playing up the cowboy part helped me solidify my identity at college, and with this new identity came a genuine love for the parts of Western culture I had previously overlooked. When I saw that PBR was holding a competition in LA, I wanted to share my newest fixation. I watched the competition in the common room, to many confused reactions: why was I watching bull riding, my friends wanted to know, and wasn’t that bad for the animals?
They weren’t the only ones with concerns; animal rights groups were actively protesting the LA PBR competition. These groups have been pressuring the LA City Council to pass its proposed ban on rodeo, alleging that PBR abuses its animals. However, those in the rodeo community have pushed back, denying those allegations and crediting the sport with providing opportunity and camaraderie. For many, bull riding isn’t just a sport, but a way of life. From its roots in Mexico to its rapid spread across the American West, rodeo has defined cowboy culture. Now, it’s an industry that can take someone from poverty to fame and bring generational status to families. The actual jobs that cowboy types work are notoriously unprofitable, and professional bull riding offers a chance to monetize passion and skill.
When I started watching PBR, I had my own concerns, but I quickly learned that PBR bulls are treated like royalty. PBR says that no painful stimulation is used to make their bulls buck — the bulls are bred for their natural inclination to buck. The bulls are treated well, seeing as they’re literally half of the sport, and their value depends on the quality of their care. Bulls retire to ranches after their professional careers, where they are treated with love — for instance, famous bull rider J.B. Mauney brought the bull that ended his career to his ranch for its retirement.
My worries about animal welfare were assuaged, but I still have reservations. In fact, I think activists may be focused on the wrong issue — while bulls are almost never harmed, one in 15 riders are. PBR is more dangerous than the NFL, and in recent years, scientists have studied the sport as a cause of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Though protective vests were introduced following rodeo legend Lane Frost’s death in the ‘90s, PBR only started mandating helmets in 2013. Riders often have several concussions throughout their careers, and many riders compete injured — partly because injuries are so common and partly because there’s serious money on the line. No doubt some of this recklessness is also caused by the machismo rampant in cowboy culture. I still feel a pang of guilt when I turn on the TV to watch PBR, not unlike when I watch football — except that when I watched the Super Bowl, the same people who had criticized my love for bull riding were watching with me. Their worries didn’t extend to more popular sports, regardless of how many NFL players are almost paralyzed on the field.
No matter how much I love it, bull riding still has its problems. While I don’t want to see athletes hurt in the process, I don’t want to see a misguided ban on rodeo, either. The sport is dangerous — there’s no way around that — but it’s also a safety net. Rodeo is a piece of my home, complete with all the same beauty and danger. It’s taught me to be more kind to what I judged too harshly, and it’s made me believe that I might just be able to find my place in Colorado. If their tendency to ride injured is any indication, it’s not easy to talk bull riders out of doing what they love. Maybe I’m not so different. I still go to country concerts, despite the hostility I’ve experienced at them, trying to make a home for myself in a culture that has so often been co-opted and corrupted by hateful people hell-bent on excluding me. Country culture, like bull riding, is far from perfect, but they’re both part of who I am. If we can’t talk each other out of doing what we love, the most that we can do is make what we love safer. If this all sounds crazy, I don’t blame you. There was a time where I would’ve agreed — but next time bull riding is on the TV, tune in for those eight seconds. Maybe you’ll fall in love too.
Contact Jay Ward at jward3@oxy.edu
