They Call the Thing Rodeo

Season 5 Episode 8 | 25mVideo has Closed Captions

Join us as we look at the beginnings of the billion dollar rodeo industry.

Spanning from the Conquistadors and Spanish ranches in Mexico to today’s billion dollar sporting industry, tests of roping, riding and wrangling have been a part of North American culture from its earliest days.

Aired 11/10/2024

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Cottonwood Connection is a local public television program presented by Smoky Hills PBS

Cottonwood Connection

They Call the Thing Rodeo

Season 5 Episode 8 | 25mVideo has Closed Captions

Aired 11/10/2024

Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback

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[MUSIC] Well, it's bulls and blood, it's the dust and mud, it's the roar of a Sunday crowd. It's the white in his knuckles, the gold in his buckle he'll win the next go 'round. It's boots and chaps, it's cowboy hats, it's spurs and latigo. It's the ropes and the reins and the joy and the pain. And they call the thing rodeo, Garth Brooks. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Today we're at the Sheridan County 4-H grounds at the rodeo arena. And it's rodeo today, but when it first came out by the Spanish, it was rodeo. And then it was kind of changed too, because it's whatever dialect of language you have is rodeer for a while. And rodeo simply means the gathering of cattle. And rodeer was to gather cattle and encircle them and have them captive. Cuz you didn't work them on the big ranges out of corrals and stuff. And so rodeo first came up and most events they had were riding the bucking horses, roping and not necessarily tie down camp roping, but team roping, heading and healing and that was about it. That was what the competition was and it greatly changed. When the rodeo started as we know it today, it wasn't coming out of the shoots. You had a gathering of cowboys that were contesting on who is the best rider and who could ride the longest. But even the early rodeos like Cheyenne and stuff, you didn't have a shoot. You either roped the horse or led the horse out on another horse. And then you blindfolded it and maybe had to tie up a leg and saddled it. And you got on and then the blindfold was untied or came loose. And same with the foot ropes or the hobbles. And so you rode the horse to a standstill. Eight seconds was not part of it. And so part of that was of the early rodeos was the finesse of things. Of how do you handle the horse of getting it in there and get it saddled and blindfolded and stuff and then ride it and ride it basically to a standstill. And so it was a rough, tough sport because at more than eight seconds there was a lot of people hurt. There was a lot of nosebleeds out of the deal where they were jogged around. A lot of injuries with the legs and the abdomen and facturnias and stuff. So it was a tough thing. And the roping too, it mostly started out with steer roping. And that's where you're roping a single steer. Roping it around the horns which you have your rope tied hard and fast onto the saddle horn. And as you rope it, you throw the rope over the right hip of the critter if you're right-handed. And your horse goes off at a 45 degree angle. And so it goes out and when the horse hits the end of that rope that twists the steer's neck around and flips him over on his side and drives him up. And so the guy, this single steer roping, the man would be standing there as the steer came by he would tie three legs together as you would in the calf roping today or tie down calf roping. And he didn't rope calves because you didn't want to hurt them because they were money in the pocket or money on the hook to the owner. And so if you roped him you just roped him very gently with finesse and dragged him to the fire and people would handle him from there and not tie him up. Coming up from the ranching areas and eras in Mexico and into the United States you were supposed to be gentle in handling your stock. So it was more finesse rather than rope and jerk and throw. You roped, you played out as if you were catching a 50 pound fish on a 10 pound test line. It was a finesse of how you did it and so you were judged on the finesse to really come into the old time cowboys. Bulldogging or steer wrestling wasn't around. Bulldogging for many years was mostly just an exhibition at a Wild West show. As the steer was let out of the chute a guy would grab it and take it to the ground. And then as a fluke one day one of the guys decided to jump off of a horse and grab the horns and flip it over. And so that was the steer wrestling and that man that mostly did it and had it perfected was an African American by the name of Bill Pickett. Historically they always say he was the first bulldogger there were. And that turned to steer wrestling and it wasn't much of a rodeo event until the 19 teens because there was only two or three guys that would want to steer wrestle. And finally they would get enough together so eventually they made it into a rodeo event. Team roping or heading and healing was part of the range thing because one roper would rope the head or the horns of the critter and the other guy would come up behind it and rope the hind legs. You stopped your horses, stretched it out, the critter would fall and then you could work it brand it or doctor it or whatever you need to do. Barrel racing wasn't in because there were ladies bronc riders too and early steer riders. But there was always trick riders for competition and the trick riders were usually women.

Not always but on who did the best stands and had the most grace about them and all that. So now they have barrel racing where you run around what they call a cloverleaf pattern with three barrels and there's rules with that. And they also have women's breakaway roping where instead of roping an animal and jerking it down or getting off and putting it down and tying its feet up, it's how fast you can go out, rope the animal and the rope is attached to the saddle by a small string. So when that string breaks with the loop around the animal's neck is when you stop the time. The calf roping with men the same way has changed. It used to be you could go out and rope a calf and stop your horse because you're tied hard and fast, that is you're tied to the saddle horn and you aren't doing any dally work. They'd flip the calf and maybe knock the wind out of it and get down there and tie its three legs together for the time. Now because of thinking of it's hurting the animals a little bit, which it probably did, you have to rope it, stop your horse and then you have to put it on its side off the horse very easily on there while it's roped. The noose is around the calf's neck but you have to lay it down and then wrap it. You don't have your horse stop and jerk the calf off balance and if the calf does get jerked off balance you have to wait for it to get up and lay it down again by hand. Brahma bull riding was late. The Brahma bulls weren't around and in historic times when they first started with the bull riding they had a gizmo on the bull that had two hand holds in it so you used both hands and then developed to use one hand and not touch it with the other. So everything kind of advanced in different ways. Livestock have changed because it used to be whatever you happen to grab, whichever was the outlaw horse in the band you wanted to see if you ride it. Now they're bred specifically for bucking and for size, both saddle broncs and bareback broncs and of course the bulls. The bulls have kind of oustepped the cowboys because you can see professional cowboys ride in a professional rodeo and they might be ten guys participating which is usual and nobody rides the bull. Unridden.

Brass Monkey the name of the bucking bull. Oh, no.

No.

No You think about bull riding and you see it's a thrill to everybody to see that stuff because many of the bulls are mean and you have the bull fighters in there to keep it away from the cowboys so there's been a lot of changes and rules change but with the PRCA or the professional cowboys those guys are professional athletes and they have rules to go by and so they know everybody knows what the rules are. And the judges judge them in a certain way on how the critter bucks or how fast it is. So you have rough stock events which today are the saddle broncs, the bareback broncs and the bulls and the others are considered timed events because you're racing against time as far as the steer wrestling and the team roping and also the tie down calf roping. I'm Leon Winfrey. I'm the president of the KPRA. That's what we call it for short, Kansas Professional Rodeo Association. Everybody kind of knows this is the KPRA. We've been the KPRA for years. It was the Kansas State Rodeo Association years and years ago but we switched over to the Kansas Professional Rodeo Association in 1992 I think. So what the deal is most people don't understand rodeo in general so I try to explain it like the NBA, the NFL. There's the PRCA which is the upper level. People make a living playing football. Well there's also the same in rodeo. There's people that literally make a living rodeoing. Associations like ours is for the working man that has a great job but they love rodeo. Ladies and gentlemen you're going to witness and you're going to see some of the greatest cowboys and cowgirls. The Kansas Pro Rodeo Association offers. Now look, most of these cowboys and cowgirls that you're going to watch here tonight, they've got a job, they've got priorities, they've got a family, a job. But on the weekends they absolutely love rodeo and I think these are some of the best cowboys and cowgirls in the sport of rodeo. There's a lot of our cowboys that have been at the next level or on their way to the next level but the majority of our contestants are just working families. They love to rodeo so this is what they do. They stay in associations like ours and they can rodeo on weekends, they go back to work on Mondays, do their job, practice, be ready for the weekend. So that's kind of what our association really is all about. And we cover six states, or Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and then of course Kansas. And we cover, we've got 45 rodeos of just the KPRAs. And then we co-approve with other associations. We have other associations like ours that we're friends with so it comes down to say there's a rodeo in Oklahoma, the IPRA. Well our cowboys are close to that association or the Colorado Association. So they'll go rodeo on that one, you know, that weekend. But they get points or dollars for our association. So that's kind of how our standings work and our friendship with other associations. So if we have some of our contestants, might be from Colorado, of course a lot of them are, Oklahoma, Texas. If they want to stay that weekend and rodeo in one of those, we're friends with them and we count those dollars. So that's kind of how our association works. We start rodeoing in March, is our first rodeo. We rodeo all summer. We keep standings of course in each event. And so we take our top 12 to these finals. So it's all about all year long when you're rodeoing you're trying to make the KPRA finals. We have one of the best finals we feel like in the country. As far as prize money we're going to pay out over $130,000 this weekend. With this much money on the line, only two to ride, big spot, set him straight, get a sing, look at him. A really good pay out, the way we're structured. We have a really good payout. The venue we have here in Dodge City is awesome. The Dodge City Roundup hosts our event every year. And so we bring the top 12 cowboys in each event here. Three night rodeo, it's head to head. And we see who comes out the winner. So then Sunday we will award our year end champions in each event. So that's what the finals is all about. At the beginning here we have Bearback Riding First. Here again the cowboys, most people ride a saddle on a horse. But the Bearback guys I suppose one day I think in the 1980s or early 1900s they say I can ride one without a saddle. So we just have a Bearback Rigging. It's kind of like a suitcase handle. It wraps around the horse and that's all they hang on to. And of course it's a spurring, it's a scoring event. They spur the horse over the points of the shoulders. As the horse hits the ground they spur in timing with them. And it's scored by how hard the horse bucks. There's 50 points for the horse, 50 points for the rider. And the judges are scoring the horse and they're scoring the rider. And so if they each get 40 points that's an 80 point score. The horse gets 40 points and the rider gets 40, that would be an 80 point score. And then our steer wrestling of course, that's the next event. It's just two people coming down the arena, keeping a steer in the middle of the arena. The Bulldogger jumps off and wrestles the steer to the ground. [cheering] This gentleman has two of those year-end championships in 2024. The breakaway roping, same as the tie down roping for the girls except they don't get off their horse and tie the calf. They rope the calf under the little string tied to the horn. And when that rope breaks away then that's when they get their company. Where the tie down rope and they rope the calf, go down and flank the calf which we can pick it up and tie three legs together. And in the team roping of course that comes back to the cowboy work. I still do it on my farm and ranch. Somebody heads the steer and somebody heals the steer. And that's so we can doctor it. You know you got a 600-pound steer and you can't just jump off a horse and bulldog him or whatever or flank him in time like a little calf. And so you rope one rope to its head, one rope to its heel and then you stretch them out and you dock three. So that's kind of the roping events and of course then this saddle bronc riding. There again, guys just got an association saddle it's called, it's just for bronc riding. This is an association saddle. They have no horn so that danger isn't there. You can get various lengths of seats but all the cantles are about the same height and they have their rigging on them to go different ways to go farther behind the horse and in the middle of the horse up closer on the neck because there's less jar and stuff. And also the fenders of the stirrups are a lot better. I mean this isn't much, this isn't very protective. And they're thin and light because with saddle broncs you spur in the shoulder and then you pull back. When the horse's head is down your feet are forward and when the front end comes up your feet are supposed to be at the back and so your timing has to go with that for a good ride because there's no horn so all you're hanging on to is a rope that's attached to a halter. There's nothing in their mouth. So that's part of the balance and also to kind of pull you down into the saddle and ride one handed. You can't touch the horse or the saddle at all during the first eight seconds of the ride or you're disqualified. And so you're judged on how well you spur, how well you set the saddle and how well the horse performs. So it's in a way kind of a luck of the draw on the horse. Some horses don't buck as hard as others and there's days when just like people horses have good days and bad days. A good day for a horse is when he's in a rodeo is when he really bucks and changes around, changes front ends and kind of tips one side or the other. And we have ranch bronc riding which some associations don't have. Generally the rules on the ranch rodeo is you ride in the saddle that you do your work on. And so with that on the ranch rodeo on the saddle bronch you can hang on to the horn or if you have a rope, a coil of rope, you can hang on to the rope. So you can hang on to something else other than just the rope that's on the halter. And then of course I don't know why they crazy guys ride bulls. But it's the same deal that scored 50 points for the bull, 50 points for the ranch. [Music] The barrel racing I can't forget it. Because that's the most popular one for the people in that.

Course I guess we go back to the 1800s. The girls are sitting on the fence until they set three barrels up out there in the pasture and they run around them and whoever got around them the fastest is who won. So that's kind of where our barrel racing is at today. Except we got really really good horses. It is it just seems like the crowd you know they get really get behind them barrel racers. It's kind of crazy. You know the bull riders first they get a lot but the barrel racers get a lot because it's a fast event. [Music] I think family is the biggest thing. People don't realize how family oriented it is. And it's all about family. I mean that no matter what level you're at whether you're at the junior rodeo associations which they start these little kids ride and do the same events as we're doing right here at six, eight, ten years old. I mean they're running, riding, roping and very very family oriented. You know I think rodeo has a little bit of maybe people think it's just a bunch of guys that just rodeo and you know are family oriented but we're very family oriented because we spend the weekend together. We spend the weekend together when we when we hauled our kids to little britches, the high school level, the college level. A lot of people don't realize college rodeo is huge. It's just like the NCAA with the basketball and you take your NCAA tournament. We have a tournament in Casper, Wyoming in June and all the colleges all over the US that their top competitors go to the finals like the NCAA tournament. My name is Chestin Rohman. I'm from Colorado. I'm a freshman at DC 3 for the rodeo program. It's great to be here. Love the community, love the school and love to live my dreams. I mean it's not like every other sport like football or basketball. It's a lot of your own personal money and time. But that's what makes it so special is nobody can take away take it away from you. It's your own personal hard work and you have to work for it every day. I've rodeod since high school college. Had my PRCA which is the next level. Had that card for a few years and then my kids got old enough they started rodeo and so I need to stay at home a little more but still competing today at 60 years old and still love it. Leon is our president at the K.P.R.A. Leo you do a great job. Thank you sir. I like the stock and the people. I like to see the competition to see if they can ride and to follow it through. Because I tried it for a short time and where I thought I was in the money sometimes and pretty high up and the team roping and by the time the season was over I made $2.83. Because I kept track of my gas and my mileage and my entry fees. And in the saddle broncs a friend of mine talked me into, there were a couple of them in the riding saddle broncs and I was, my background is archeology and I might be digging and never even touch a horse for three weeks at a time and I would go to Manhattan or somewhere and I would say oh we've got you entered in a rodeo. Well you got to practice. And so the best I ever did was probably three jumps out of the shoot. I lit on my head a lot and looked for my glasses when I got down. Most people think cowboys are probably just fat and out of shape. They're in super shape. I mean you're no matter what event you're in even as a team roper myself I still have to ride a horse down the arena wide open, rope a steer. So I have to be in good shape. I mean we are. It's kind of amazing you take your steer wrestlers, your tie down ropers, they're in outstanding shape but you know or anybody that's competing on a horse keeps the shape, takes care of theirself. Lots of fundamentals. I mean it doesn't just stay in the practice pen. You have to work in the gym to work out. You have to rope the dummy every day. You have to rope live cattle. You have to work with your horses. We tie from the post so we do a lot of ground work in the calf tying which is like tremendous work for anybody and you know it just starts in the practice pen first and then the team roping's like even more special because you don't just rely on yourself or your horse. You have to rely on your partner and their horse as well. So I like the team roping because it brings in the team aspect of rodeo. It doesn't just start in the arena. It doesn't start between a pipe fence or whatever fence you have in your arena. It starts out in the pasture whether it's gathering cows or doctoring cows. I mean it's been around a lot longer than people think and it starts in the pasture caring for your cattle or any other animals you may have and it's a lot more than just coming in here and performing in the arena. Well it all started on the ranches. I mean it was a bunch of cowboys got together one night and they said hey I can ride a horse, a bucking and horse better than you. And so they had a competition and the next day they said well I can rope better than you. Well that's where rodeo started. I mean it's you know years and years old. It was about competition in the pastures and so then eventually they ended up into a sport and we call it the best thing on dirt. He won Plainville. He won freedom. Let's do it again, Pops. Oh yes, sir. I mean we have a great other athletics at our school as well but there's nothing quite like watching a rodeo on a Friday or a Saturday night so just the involvement and the support that you get from everybody is really special. And you guys are here volunteering as part of this event? Yep, we just like to give back to the community that gives so much to us. Where I'm at at my level we're with family every weekend. Every night we drive all night, we work all day and drive all night. That's the deal with rodeos people don't understand. Really don't understand. It's as strong a family as there is. Every families out there, you watch steer wrestlers, you watch the calf ropers. They're competing against each other but there's nobody that doesn't want the other guy to win. You see the guy that's leading the times and then within a few seconds somebody's faster and they're giving him a high five. And that's that family I'm talking about with rodeo. So that's very very strong. I think my favorite part about it is nobody can take it away from you because it's your own hard work and just like I said earlier that every single day you get to step in the arena and you get to glorify God in what you love to do and no matter what you always have a spot and it's in the arena. I think the future of rodeo is very very bright. You know the roots of America is still here in rodeo. We pray before every rodeo. We sing the national anthem and they're very strong with, you know our faith and our rodeo. And I think when you're working with that it'll be here forever. The American way that's what rodeo is all about. And that's what we all stay strong for. [MUSIC]

Cottonwood Connection is a local public television program presented by Smoky Hills PBS