Ride 'em cowboy

A bull can weigh in at more than a small car and reacts if a fly lands on its back. A cowboy is no fly. So, when he tries riding one of these combative animals, even for just a few seconds, complications result. Reporter Jared Morgan and chief photographer Barry Harcourt look at the lure of the original extreme sport: rodeo.

In the chute, a bull snorts ... waiting.

It's only when the cowboy carefully lowers himself on to his back does the bull jostle for position, trying to pin his rider's leg against the chute's railing.

It's a move that could shatter the cowboy's leg.

He tightens the braided rope around the bull's upper torso and the agitated animal replies by crashing his thigh against the rail.

The cowboy nods his head and the gate swings open.Dirt flies from the kicking hooves.

The cowboy's goal is to pass eight agonising, head-snapping, adrenaline-pumping seconds atop half a tonne of displeased beef. The rider sees a blur of fellow cowboys standing at the chutes ... a blur of the crowd ... the back of the bull's neck.

Careful to keep his free arm away from him, he holds on for dear life to the rope with his other hand as the bull bucks, rears, kicks and spins, twisting in an effort to unseat him. But it cannot. Man and bull are one, the hooter sounds and the dismounting rider then falls on his side in the dirt. The inelegant ending doesn't matter; he has survived what is regarded as the most dangerous eight seconds in sport.

Here is a sport where defeat can come brightly upon you, as you suddenly find yourself gazing into a vivid blue sky. Or it can hit you like a blizzard of stinging grit.

As a commentator notes when another rider is bucked before the hooter: "He just got a mouthful of sand for his trouble ..."

As the most dangerous event of any rodeo, bull riding is saved for last, giving the cowboy plenty of time to contemplate his impending ride.

They pace behind the chutes.

While ultimately they are competing each other they must first face off with a four-legged 850kg opponent as primed for this event as they are.

The banter between cowboys reflects that.

"I reckon that bull's got all the tricks figured out," one says.

"Yeah, you can tell he loves it as much as we do," another replies.WE'RE lakeside in Te Anau, an unforgivingly bright sun blazes down, but its heat is stopped by a cold wind coming straight off the water and sweeping across the open-air arena that hosts the town's annual rodeo.

The day is starting, and among a sea of trucks and livestock trailers, dozens of cowboys kick up dust. They all cast similar shadows: a cowboy hat atop a collared long-sleeved shirt.

Today includes the standard rodeo-fare of saddle-bronc and bareback riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, team roping, and bull riding.

As second division saddle-bronc and bareback riding competitor Ben "Possum" Watson says his three-year involvement in the sport came about through a mate.

"A mate of mine threw me on a bareback horse ... it was great – I've never looked back."

The laconic, Hakataramea Valley lad was hooked.

"The adrenaline gets you ... it puts bungy jumping to shame," he says, as he lounges on the ground, leaning against his bag of gear a curl of smoke rising off his slender roll-your-own cigarette.

In three years he has broken ribs, an ankle, collar bone and injured his acromioclavicular joint, otherwise know as the AC joint, or the a joint at the top of the shoulder.

"It's part of the game."

Like bull riding, Watson's chosen competitions rely on the eight second rule.

"It's a long time, it really does seem like a long time ... a lot stuff goes through your head. You think about what you are going to do, the placement of your feet and how to use your free hand for balance – if you hang it (the free arm) down to the side that's where you're going to go."

Constantly working to perfect his skill, eventually he hopes to chase the holy grail of rodeo in the United States where it began. But this year Australia beckons.

The Central Queensland town of Rockhampton is dubbed the beef capital of Australia, naturally rodeo follows and it is here he plans to make his debut in competition across the Tasman.

Five year circuit veteran and open bareback and team roping competitor Scott Mayberry, who hails from the Canterbury town of Darfield, is blunt when asked why he takes part. "Why not?" It's a sport that has taken him to Canada and Australia and he plans to take part in the premier Canadian competition in Alberta, Canada, this year.

Another with five years' experience, Garrick Scully says rodeo is what he lives for.

Transplanted to Invercargill from his native Wakouaiti in Otago to work as a diesel mechanic, the open saddle bronc competitor's ride did not go according to plan, he says. "The horse just reared out of the shute."

Steer wrestler Greg Lamb, of Waikaka near Gore, says rodeo has been part of his life for about 20 years.

"I've been in rodeo since I was 12."

There's always something new to learn.

"I'm still getting up there."

That battle-hunger combined with the adrenaline keeps him coming back for more, he says.

"Getting off a horse doing 40 miles an hour to wrestle a steer ... it's a rush ..."

But it has come at a cost of about 16 fractures in his rodeo career.

Palmerston's Church family are rodeo royalty.

The East Otago whanau has been competing for generations, its latest patriarch and multiple title winner, Dion Church says.

A third generation competitor, the sport is ingrained in the family with the mantle passing to the fourth generation – his four children.

They, like all competitors, covers hundreds of kilometres throughout the rodeo season in a circuit that takes cowboys across the South Island rural hinterland.

Some travel even further, flying from across the Tasman, to take part in competition that begins in December and continues through to March.

They stop in a small town, attempt to win or place in an event at the rodeo, claim their money, sample the nightlife, and then they're gone, off to the next event.

It's a 21st century Kiwi version of the American western frontiersman's dream.

However, there is hardship. A rodeo cowboy pays all his own expenses.

If he gets bucked, he goes home without a cent. But they don't do it for the money. Entry costs about $40 and all entrance fees goes into the top-four prizemoney pool as does an amount from the hosting club.

Top dollar is between $300 and $1000 for the bull ride, other feature events might bring in $400. Here in Te Anau the same scenario plays out as every other rodeo on the circuit as a line of akubra hats file in and out of the truck taking their entries into the competition.

It's a "no play, no pay" world, where only the most life-threatening injuries ever keep a cowboy off his ride.

Not that you'd ever hear a rodeo's participants complain about the risk.

Still, there are risks, as St John Ambulance staff John Lambeth, Di Pont, and Tracy Lambeth, who are on stand-by at the grounds will testify.

"It's the original man versus wild," Mr Lambeth, Te Anau St John's assistant station manager, says.

Most injuries are soft tissue related, through to fractures, but the potential for injuries is "unlimited", he says.

Tears from a cowboy are rare and most soldier on unless pain intervenes, Miss Lambeth says.

"They don't come to us unless it's (the injury is) really sore."

While the paramedics deal with the aftermath of the battle between man and beast, there are key players who try to prevent disaster.

While, cowboys and cowgirls are the stars of the show, supported by their bovine and equine partners, the engines that keep the show running are the clowns.

Like ushers they keep the action flowing and the arena cleared in time for the next rider. But key to their job is trying to prevent tragedy.

They protect cowboys with the athleticism of fullbacks and the derring-do of stuntmen, trying to prevent a vulnerable cowboy from getting trampled or what is known in the business as a "wreck".

It can mean being a rodeo clown isn't all that funny.

At the 2007 Methven Rodeo a raging bull tossed its cowboy.

In stepped clown, or bullfighter, Shane Bird, who tried to wave and taunt the angry animal's attention away from fallen Hawaiian Jeremy Starr, who was in New Zealand with a team of 16 cowboys from the island state.

The bull, known for backing up as it bucked, threw Starr over its head before planting a hoof on his skull knocking him out.

The bull then zeroed in, spinning on top of Starr's seemingly lifeless body as Bird, surveyed his options, before putting himself on the line.

Throwing himself on top of Starr he absorbed most of the impact as the bull danced around kicking above them until it was attracted away by another bullfighter, Mark Tweedy from Gore.

St John medical staff picked up Starr's motionless body carried him out of the arena where he was airlifted to Christchurch.

Starr suffered back and neck injuries ...Bird carried on with the show.

Modest about his heroics, he puts it simply. "I guess that's what I'm here for."

Bird says he was a budding bull rider before making the change to bull fighting "because I wasn't good at riding them."

Working both the North and South Island circuits, along with the occasional stint in Canada and Australia, Bird reckons he fights bulls for an average of 30 days per year.TE ANAU Rodeo Club president Sandy Tee says the town has been part of the circuit for 42 years.

In that time the Rodeo grounds – situated on the aptly-named Rodeo Dr – have seen the urban creep of houses get closer and closer as subdivisions spring up all around it.

The future of the grounds is secure as they are designated as a recreational reserve, Tee says.

And, he believes the town sitting cheek-to-cheek with the grounds is a good thing – making the event more accessible, but he acknowledges the sport has its critics.

Animal rights groups decry the rodeo as an abusive spectacle that has no place in a civilised society.

The bull riders insists the animals are treated with as much respect as the human athletes who ride them.

Tee agrees and says the animals are bred to do it and know the game as much as their human opponents do.

The club owns the horses, 45 of them, used in the rodeo, while the steers and bulls come courtesy of the Butson family on the sprawling more than 40,000ha Mt Nicholas Station on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, between Queenstown and Glenorchy, he says.

RODEO HOSTS
Today brings rodeo back to the South with Matuara holding hosting rights, while the Southland Rodeo will be held tomorrow.

The North Island plays also host to the Huntly Rodeo tomorrow. Mid-way through the season the other rodeos to take place throughout New Zealand are:

• Outram Rodeo, February 6, 2010
• Waikouaiti Rodeo, February 7
• Lawrence Rodeo, February 13
• Reefton Rodeo (Non Points) February 20
• Waikato Rodeo, February 20
• 8 Seconds Bullriding, February 27 and 28
• Tua Marina (Non Points), February 27
• Upper Mohaka (2nd Division), March 6
• Waimarino Rodeo, March 13 and 14
• Egmont Wanganui National Finals Rodeo 2010, March 19 and 20
• 8 Seconds Bullriding, April 3

- © Fairfax NZ News