As promised, here are some photographs from the Stampede.
Saddle Bronc
You probably already know about this event – it’s where the rider tries to stay on the horse for eight seconds, while the horse bucks and tries to get him off. They then get marks, although I don’t know how the marking scheme works. (The picture might be bareback bronc actually).
Steer Wrestling
In this event a steer is released from a stall, and then a mounted cowboy rides after it, leaps off his horse onto the steer and wrestles it to the ground. The good ones do it in about three and a half seconds.
Bull Riding
This event is like bronc, but you have to be crazier, since you ride a mad bull instead of a crazy horse. One guy who came off got butted into the fence, but got up and walked away. (Well, ran actually). In the bareback bronc a guy came off and was knocked unconscious, but they managed to revive him and he walked away rather unsteadily.
Other events we saw were calf roping, where a calf is released, a cowboy rides after it, lassoes it, jumps off his horse and ties the calf’s legs together – in about seven or eight seconds. And barrel racing – where they ride a horse around three barrels which are spaced out in the arena, as fast as possible. In the final then the two fastest tied at exactly 17.43 seconds (or thereabouts), so they had to have another race to find the winner. The runner up was sixty-three years old.
Before we watched the rodeo we watched a bit of the working cow horse competition. Unfortunately a cow horse isn’t a bizarre half cow, half horse creature, but a horse which rounds up cows. Like a sheep dog. And a monster dog isn’t scary at all, it’s just a big hot dog. Anyway, we watched a bit of the competition, and the picture is of that.