Cowgirl Glitter

“Dirt is cowgirl glitter”
– Fallon Taylor

Depending on what part of the country you’re in, the stunning morning sights outside your front door can vary widely. One morning, sitting on a New York City stoop, I saw a parade of naked bicyclists ride by, and was left with an uncomfortable number of saddle questions. A beachside Saint Augustine patio gave me a sunrise over the Atlantic that is often my last dream before I wake up. Opening my camper to an Easter sunrise service at Horsetooth Reservoir above Fort Collins is one of the best front patio views I’ve ever had. But a couple days ago, I was sitting on my cousin’s front patio, and saw another never-before first.

I was semi-looking across the street with a cup obscuring the better part of my view, when what looked a lot like a horse crossed across what little of the world I could still see. I lowered the cup enough to confirm that indeed, a riderless and saddleless horse had just passed me by at a pretty good clip. More saddle questions. The horse was moving fast enough that his gallop sounded like more than one horse.

No. Not the sound from him. There was more than one horse. Suddenly, a half dozen horses passed by me, and my heart was thumping. I could see several more passing in the same direction a block further away from us. My reality was bent a little and my jaw felt like it was on my knees as my cousin came out and smiled. I asked her if this was a typical morning. She said while it wasn’t, it wasn’t a first, it happened once a year.

What I was witnessing was the unofficial kickoff of the 127th Cheyenne Frontier Days, as the horses who would make up the equine portion of the Wild Horse Race were herded into town from the land they occupy outside the city. Their arrival kicks off a week and a half of pancake breakfasts and parades, carnivals and national music acts. But even with all of that literal horsepower, the biggest draw just north of the Colorado border the next 10 days is the Daddy of ‘Em All.

The “World’s Largest Outdoor Rodeo and Western Celebration” will put on a show with some of rodeo’s finest athletes competing for their points in one of the PRCA’s most prestigious events of the year. If you’ve never seen a rodeo up close and in person, or got to see something amateurish once, nothing can quite prepare you for the power, grace, and athleticism of both the riders and the ridden in Pro Rodeo. The skills it takes to do some of what these people do is nothing short of insane.

When it comes to the Wild Horse race described above, a set of three cowboys, each with his own designated role in the goal, are set to saddle and ride one of those usually-unridden horses that passed me by other morning, and ride it across a finish line. The 10 teams that are participating always have… varied outcomes.

The strength of some of those guys keeping a horse from bolting while saddling them up, the balance and tenacity of the riders… Incredibly difficult. Amazing.

The roping events are some of the most exacting work in rodeo, or in sport, for that matter. While the breakaway roping and tiedown roping are the women’s and men’s individual events respctively, both may compete in the team roping event. Team Roping hearkens back to ranching days when a calf that needed to be brought down was simply too big for one cowboy or cowgirl to handle. The team event requires that the first rider get a loop over the head of a steer in one of three qualifying ways before his/her teammate manages to slip another loop under and around the steer’s legs.

The precision and skill of any of the roping riders, especially these pros, is astounding, and still many of the best of the best will fail to snag anything but air on the big stage.

Some of the more did-you-see-that? moments in rodeo come from a couple of events it’s hard to believe exist until you see them in person, Bareback Riding, and Steer Wrestling. Each is about as up close and personal with the animals as the riders get in a rodeo.

Bareback riding stems from the early days of wild horse taming, much like Wild Horse race above. When cowboys would go “bronco bustin”, or taming wild horses to ride, a cowboy would jump onto the back of a horse and grab its mane, or would have a rope loosely wrapped around the horse’s ribs that would cinch as he got on. With nothing but one of those two things to hold onto, one held on for dear life.

Translated into modern rodeo: a rider with a leather rig for his hand not much wider than the rope described above, rides a horse with no saddle from out of a chute. The rider not only has to stay on that horse for eight seconds, but has to keep his boots ABOVE THE HORSES SHOULDERS WITH HIS SPURS TOUCHING THE HORSE until after the horse’s front feet have landed from his first jump. It’s like trying to keep your feet on the front of a toilet seat while you sit there, but in a 10.4 magnitude earthquake. Feet move too early? 10 second penalty, and time counts to your score. Not only is the rider scored, but the horse is too. Oh, and you cannot, must not, touch the horse with that free hand. So, uh… Good luck with that…

Wrestling a steer at least starts out on a horse with a saddle, but there’s a downside from there, and it seems pretty implicit in the name… You will be leaving that lovely horse you’re currently pushing to its limits alongside that snorting 600-pound cheeseburger you just caught up with to gently lower yourself upon it.

That’s right, you leave one animal for another in this particular ride. Not only that, but once you “gently” arrive upon said quarter-ton bovine, you are to grab that bull by the horns – no, that is not just a saying – slow him down, and then…

Well, and then throw him down. A 600-pound, pissed off cow with a couple nasty stabbies on his head that you currently have a grip on. That you damned well better have a grip on.

Insanity. The best guy to ever do it at Frontier Days caught up with a steer with the customary 30-foot head start and had him on the ground in… get this… 5.1 seconds. It probably took you longer than that to read that last sentence. Insane.

When the cowgirls get out on the arena floor for barrel racing, there are moments in those sub-20 seconds – if you’re amongst the best of the best – that you’d swear horse and rider are one organism. The ballet, brute force, and poetry with which athlete and horse traverse that 300-foot triangle in a cloverleaf is both mesmerizing and brain-shattering.

The top barrel racer in the country has already made nearly six figures this season, and there are a litany of rodeos left to go in the year. There are high stakes and high pressure to perform at these events, and it leads teams to spend exorbitant amounts on a horse that is “just right” for these talented riders, with some horses fetching well over six figures just to procure, let alone train.

But some folks still do it the old fashioned way, including one of CFD’s past barrel racing champions. The four-time winner who set a blazing course record of 17.03 seconds did it on a horse she trained the hell out of after spending a whopping 400 bucks on. There’s a hell of a return on your investment.

Last but not least are the events that are usually debated as to which one is the “toughest event in rodeo”, due to the incredible synchronicity required between the rider and and ridden. Saddle Bronc Riding and Bull riding are more often than not the background on the commercial or the picture in the poster you’re seeing while someone is trying to tell you there’s a RODEO in town. The imagery is iconic, the danger? Well, it’s dangerous.

In Saddle Bronc Riding, it’s a crazy game of balance where a rider is sitting on a saddle custom made for them and their needs – so many saddle questions – and then has to use a set of reins that is unique to each event. Where a rider holds the reins is paramount to their success. Choke up on those reins, and the horse won’t move a whole lot. You won’t get thrown off, but you also won’t do much of anything worth watching. The two judges scoring you and your horse will give you a number that sounds like, “meh”.

But let those reins up just a couple millimeters too loosely, and you’re suddenly going to find yourself flying upside down over the top of what you had hoped might be a friendlier commute, all to land in dirt you hope is soft enough to not break anything and then move at least enough to not get trampled by same said horse. Land in that dirt too early, and your points for all that effort will be nada. There are still rules you must follow akin to Bareback Riding, and every mistake costs you seconds or points. Every micro-move the horse makes has a counter by the cowboy that is both to keep him on the horse, and to look damned impressive in doing so.

Saddle Bronc Riding was the very first and only event at the very first and only Cheyenne Frontier Days, spanning the course of one full day. 127 years later, and all the cowboys that have come through, and the closest anyone’s ever come to a perfect score (100)? Thirteen years back, a cowpoke punched a 91. Anything over 80 is a “wow”. Tough, tough stuff.

Bull Riding? Just do all of that last one on the back of that 600-pound cheeseburger we discussed above. More power, steeper angles, and don’t forget those nasty stabbies. Some of the bulls are so powerful, they end up never getting ridden their full eight seconds, and make their own name and fame. A bull from the 80’s named “Mr. T” ended up not being ridden hundreds of times through the decade before finally having three riders finally had success – the first at Frontier Days – before he retired and went on to star in a Rocky movie. That very last part is unconfirmed.

We here at the WKND rarely make recommendations for your weekends, DNVR Nation, but the next couple of weekends bring a sport past our doors that is rare and unique. Should you never have taken the time to witness all of the above that is rodeo, plus the entertainment, the events, and the incredible number of cowboy hats, it’s about time, isn’t it? Time to get a little cowgirl glitter on those boots, even if you’re a cowboy.