Bull riding

Bull riding is a rodeo sport in which riders attempt to remain seated on the back of a bull as the bull tries to buck them off. The activity began in Mexico in the sixteenth century, when ranchers and cowboys started competing against one another’s skills in horse racing, wrangling, and bull riding. These activities spread to California, Texas, and other parts of the American Southwest by the nineteenth century, due mostly to the influx of Mexican ranch hands to this region. From that point, bull riding and various other rodeo sports remained ingrained parts of Southwestern American culture.

Bull riding became an official world sport in 1992, when the international bull-riding organization Professional Bull Riders (PBR) formed in Pueblo, Colorado. The group devised rules and regulations for bull riding and held yearly championships to determine the best bull rider in the world. In the 2010s, most bull riders who participated in PBR events were from the United States, Mexico, Canada, or Brazil. The organization attempted to expand into more countries in the 2010s.

Origins and History

Bull riding began as one of several animal-themed competitions held among ranchers during Mexico’s Spanish colonization period in the sixteenth century. Known collectively as charreadas, these events were based on various aspects of ranching. Bull riding, called jaripeo, was one such competition. At the time, bull riding consisted of riders simply mounting the bulls and riding them to death. The event was eventually amended to require the riders to ride the bulls only until the bulls became tired and stopped bucking them. These ranching competitions continued in Mexico for the next several hundred years.

By the 1800s, Mexican and American cultures had firmly blended together at the United States-Mexico border, located in the American Southwest. This occurred mostly because of the great number of Mexican immigrants who left their own country to work as ranch hands in Texas, California, and other Southwestern states. As a result, charreada competitions started appearing in the Southwest in the mid-1800s.

The first official bull-fighting competition organized by white Americans in the United States took place at the 1852 Lone Star Fair in Corpus Christi, Texas. Bull fighting was the fair’s main event, while bull riding took a secondary position. However, the bull-riding portion of the show proved so popular with audiences that it was covered by newspapers even in distant New Orleans, Louisiana.

Growth Through Rodeos.Bull riding remained a popular event with Americans in the early twentieth century. By this time, traveling Wild West shows had added steer riding to their events rosters, since steer were tamer than bulls. These shows became highly popular in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century because they provided Americans with nostalgic memories of the Old West that had begun fading in this era.

Many of the employees of the Wild West shows were former cowboys who had turned to these traveling performance troupes for work. The cowboys brought their own ranch-style competitions to the shows, including bull riding. These competitions eventually became collectively known as the rodeo, and they survived even after the Wild West shows disappeared.

Bull riding was a fan favorite at rodeos throughout the Southwest, but even by the 1930s, it had been not been organized with a standard set of rules. To make the event an official sport, rodeo cowboys formed the Cowboy’s Turtle Association in 1936. The organization devised rules for bull riding and other rodeo sports while also popularizing the events among the American people. The group changed its name to the Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1945 and to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) in 1975.

Professional Bull Riders (PBR).Finally, in 1992, twenty rodeo bull riders gathered in Scottsdale, Arizona, to form a new organization called Professional Bull Riders (PBR). Unlike a standard rodeo, this group featured bull riding as its only event, as PBR’s founders believed the sport was so popular that it deserved its own separate competitions.

PBR quickly became the United States’ premiere bull-riding organization. Increasing national attention and a growing fan base soon brought PBR considerable profits, which allowed the group to expand and offer bull riders larger championship winnings. Bull riding through PBR remained a highly popular American sport in the twenty-first century.

Rules and Regulations

Historically, bull riding has been an exhibition of which riders could remain on a bucking bull the longest. With the formation of PBR in 1992, the official sport as practiced in the United States took on various official rules and regulations that dictated exactly what riders had to do to win a bull-riding competition.

Under PBR rules, a bull ride is to last eight seconds. The rider sits atop the bull, places one hand in the bull rope attached to the bull, and keeps the other hand in the air. The clock begins when the bull breaks out of its holding gate and into the arena.

The bull then begins bucking the rider, who must struggle to remain mounted for eight seconds. The clock stops if the rider lets go of the bull rope for any reason, or if the rider’s free hand touches the bull, the ground, or the rider’s own body during the ride.

After eight seconds, the ride ends and both the rider and the bull are scored by a panel of judges. Riders are judged by the amount of control they displayed during their ride. Judges consider how the rider responded to the bull’s movements, as well as how centered the rider stayed while riding the bull. Riders can earn up to fifty points for an eight-second ride. The judges may award riders extra points for style—for example, if the riders spurred the bull with their heels during the ride.

Judges also award points to the bulls. Bulls are scored based on their physical strength and on how difficult they were to ride. Moves such as spins, kicks, drops, rolls, and quick changes in direction are all factored into the bull’s final score. Like riders, bulls can also earn up to fifty points. Therefore, the judges can award a generally successful bull ride a total of one hundred points. Bulls and riders may sometimes be allowed to ride again if the bull was unusually calm during the ride or forced the rider up against surrounding objects.

The scores awarded for individual bull rides are only small parts of an overall PBR competition. These scores place the riders and bulls in certain positions in one round of the competition. Multiple rounds make up an event. Riders and bulls accumulate points as they progress through the rounds of an event. These points position the riders within the event and in PBR world standings. The rider with the most world standing points at the end of an event wins the competition.

Strategy and Tactics

Riding bulls in professional competitions such as those held by PBR requires physical strength and knowledge of how the bulls will move while being ridden. Novices in bull riding are usually advised to prepare themselves thoroughly for the physical challenge of riding a bull before actually doing so, as they place themselves in great danger by participating in the sport.

The bulls used in bull riding are usually aggressive and weigh about two thousand pounds. Should bulls buck their riders onto the ground, it is not uncommon for the bulls to then try to trample the riders or stab them with their horns. This information is often relayed to aspiring bull riders as a warning about what participating in the sport may entail.

The first steps in training to become a bull rider are to become physically fit and study bull-riding skills. Riders in better physical condition are less likely to sustain serious injuries while riding bulls. This is because remaining on a bucking bull requires the use of a variety of muscles that many people do not ordinarily use. Older bull riders are more at risk of sustaining injury than younger riders and need to be in even better physical condition.

Once in excellent condition, new bull riders should enroll at a bull-riding clinic to learn the basic mechanics and physical requirements of riding bulls. For example, qualified instructors will teach students how to manage the bull-riding equipment, how to behave while seated on the bull in the gate, how to ride the bull, and how to dismount. Beginner students should train only with beginner-level bulls, as these will be less aggressive.

Professional Leagues and Series

PBR is the world’s premiere professional bull-riding league. Headquartered in Pueblo, Colorado, the international organization features primarily American participants but has also employed bull riders from Mexico, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and several other countries.

Like many professional sports, PBR features a regular season of competition that leads into a final series. PBR’s annual season-ending event is the Built Ford Tough Series (BFTS). In this series, the top thirty-five bull riders in the world convene for several months of competition in numerous cities throughout the United States.

Each event in the BFTS lasts between two and three days. One round of competition is held each day, with each of the thirty-five riders riding at least one bull. Competitors are eliminated from this championship series as the events progress.

Eventually, the best fifteen bull riders—those with the most world standing points—compete in the Built Ford Tough World Finals in Las Vegas. These riders compete in three successive rounds before advancing to the championship round. Points and cash prizes are significantly increased in this final round.

Each rider then competes with a final bull. The riders are judged based on their cumulative points from the past season. The rider with the most world standing points by the end of the championship competition becomes the PBR world champion and wins the world championship belt buckle and a $1 million prize.

Though the United States-based PBR attracts bull riders from a variety of countries, several other nations also hold their own national rodeo competitions that include bull riding and other events. Examples include the Australian Professional Rodeo Association (APRA) and the New Zealand Rodeo Cowboys Association (NZRCA).

Popularity

About two million Americans attended the BFTS and other PBR events every year in the United States in the 2010s. Other internationally televised PBR events were viewed by about one hundred million people worldwide. These audience numbers symbolized the rapid growth PBR experienced in its first two decades as a professional sport league.

In 2005, the organization had expanded into Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Australia. This allowed PBR-sanctioned events to be staged in these countries, which attracted hundreds of thousands of tourists and created tens of thousands of jobs. In the 2010s, PBR leadership hoped to expand further into the profitable market of South America, as well as into some Asian markets such as China.

Bibliography

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