Well people have asked me over the years what it is like to be on the back of a bull, what drives someone to get on the back of one of these body destroying, bone mincing animals. Well this description will be as close as you will possibly get to being on their back, the rush of adrenalin going through your veins so fast you get a bit light headed, the knots that are in your stomach, butterflies what ever you want to call it .
So here is your lesson on bull riding, you go to the back of the shutes (where you get on the bulls) you don’t take any notice of what is going on around you, you start getting your gear ready (bull rope) the rope comes out first, then you wrap your rope around a rail so you don’t get any dirt that will fowl up your rosin (it helps your hand to stay in the hand piece on the rope). You look around and you start to see ropes getting tied up on the rails, you start roughing up your rope with a wire brush so the rosin sticks to the rope and your hand hold as well.
Then the bells start to be belted onto the ropes and all you hear is bells ringing then the nerves start to get restless and you take a deep breath just to try to settle them down but they just keep building in the bottom of your stomach. You reach into your bag and grab your chaps (you wear them over your jeans, they are for show more than anything else), you hang them over the rail next to your rope so you have all of the necessary gear you need .
All the riders around look at each and nod theirs heads at each other just to say gidday and recognition to one another, you go down and have a look at the bull you have drawn in which you are to ride (well try to ride), you look around and you spot the 800 to 900kgs of mean, bone breaking, teeth shattering, muscle tearing animal. Both lock eyes even on a hot day, a shiver runs down your spine and the goose bumps rise under your long sleeve shirt. Other riders walk down to where you are and they ask which one did you draw and you point him out and in the same time they point out which one they have drawn to ride. Then we all walk back to where all of our gear is hanging. At the back of the shutes you hear the announcer telling all bull riders to get they gear ready because we are next to ride, so all bull riders start to do stretches to limber up all leg muscles, ligaments need to be stretched as well, you bend over to warm up the back and stretch all back mussels too. The adrenaline starts rushing through your veins, you take very deep breaths just to keep it in check (doesn’t help at all but it feels good though).
Everyone reaches up to get their chaps from the rail from where they are hanging, your fingers and hands start to shake doing up the buckle on the front of the chaps, and you reach around to the back of your legs to buckle up the small straps that go around your legs. Once they are buckled up you check your rope just once more to see if you have enough rosin on the rope, you hear the back yard workers yelling, whistling, whips cracking, gates being kicked, hooves thumping on the ground. You look up and you see back yard workers walk pass you to get to the slide gates to open them up and then you lock eyes on the bulls forcing each other up the race, slide gates are closed, bulls in each shutes, all of a sudden you can't hear a thing, your concentration kicks in and all you do is think of how you are going to ride the bull you have drawn up and he is in the next fill of bulls. (Group of bulls ready to buck out.)
Your bull is standing ready to get moved up, you go over to the rails your foot hits the rails he snorts and he swings his head back to try and horn your leg but he can’t get to you. The rope slides down the side of his hide and the bell hits the rails and makes a ringing noise, it stirs him up, another bull ride comes over to help you out to get your rope on him .The rope is around him just behind his shoulder, the rope is secured, you hop down from him just to make him settle down then you walk away and just concentrate on how you are going to ride him (or cover him when he jumps out of the shut). They run him up the shutes and now they call your name out and you call back now it is your turn to buck out.
Butterflies race around your stomach faster then they were before you set eyes on him, butterflies get intense as you near the shute as you grab the hand rail of the shute, your stomach cramps and feel like you are about to vomit. Your near the top of the shute and you straddle the bull below you, the nerves, butterflies just vanish as other riders climb up to help you to tie down, your hanging onto the top rails of the shut to slowly slid your legs either side of him just let him know that you are about to sit on his back. He starts to kick the slid gate, head butts the shute, the bulls whole body starts to quiver he knows what is going on, he is jamming your legs on the side of the shute, he is restless, he starts to buck a bit someone grabs your belt so you don’t go down front of him in the shut (bad place to end up and I have seen that done …scary place to be). Your rope is in your hand so you slid it back and forth on the bulls back so it doesn’t get caught or twisted, you can feel the hot breath from the bull you’re sweating from concentration, other rides grab the tail of the rope so it is tight and you heat up the rosin you applied before. You reach down to warm up the hand hold on your rope, back and forth you heat up the hand hold now it is time to put your hand in the hold, you say time to pull the tail tight, you pull back on the rope to find out if it is tight.
You grab the hide of the bull so it wont get caught or pinched, you say tighter for the rope to be tightened, you pull your hand back and it hardly moves so you grab the tail of your rope to pull it over the rope. You grab with your fingers the tail and you hang on to it. Now it is time to wrap it around the back of your hand and to the front back to your palm, then the twist in the tail of your rope in your hand. Your grip feels tight and good, it is time to move up on your rope (where it basically set firmly in your groin), you move your legs so they are just behind the rope which is around his hairy hide, your toes are facing east and west spurs have a good grip all feels great ready to buck out of the shute.
Butterflies have gone, the knot in your gut has gone, you nod your head for the shute gate to open you hear the click of the latch cracks, the gate opens (now for the fun). He explodes out of the shute jumping high throwing back his head, his horns coming within about millimetres from your head. He lands on his front leg or both front legs depends if he is going into a spin which is a place where you don’t want to be, it is scary and a very dangerous place to be . The bull swells up and crushing your hand, he blows your feet out from where you put them in the shute, you grab again with your feet driving the spurs back in place trying to get back up on his back and your free hand keeping your balance.
You can feel the way he is going to go with the next buck so you shift your body for the buck then he changes in mid air (roughly about 7 to 8 feet in the air) if you have seen this bull buck before, you know he is going to drop his left shoulder and go into a spin which you know it could get very scary. Four things that could happen if you get in a spin, one is which you could get stood on, or get a horn in the ribs or hit in the head with his horns as well as been tossed out into the open, let alone been hung up (where your hand is still in the hand piece on the rope, but you are not on top of the bull anymore, then the clowns go to work to get you out).
Instead he drops his right shoulder and puts you off of balance so you use your free arm to swing back the other way to counter balance the way he is going. You watch your hand which you’re hanging on with so you can get balance and move your body as well, he goes back the other way throwing you off balance to get you down the side of him so he can use those horns which he knows are lethal to you.
You take a chance on staying down the side, he throws his head back to you so you can use your free arm to swing back on him, hopefully .When you are down the side of a bull bucking you can see right into his eyes, it is very scary feeling if you can remember it. It pays off and you swing back up not quite on your rope but you now the third buck and he is going to try and rattle you loose, you grip tighter with your spurs and your legs now you're sitting back off of your rope and you throw your free arm forward to get you back up on your rope.
Now he is in mid air and is whistling his whole body, head to one side, shoulders out the other side and his back legs kicking out the back. The power that can come out of those back legs you can feel the power going right through him, he comes back down to earth and tries to suck back (buck back under you, rodeo talk) to throw you over the front of him, you swing your free arm back over your head to get your balance back. All of your muscles are ripped from one end of your body to the other, bones joints are jerked around, pulled out of their sockets, your wrist feels like it is going to break of but it stays in its joint (when you think of it, it is the only joint that hardly gets broken). He can feel you getting off balance so he spins back to the left with his head and horns coming back at you so you lean back far enough so he can’t get to you.
He starts to go into a spin bucking into your hand (if you ride left hand, he spins to the left that is bucking or spinning into your hand and visa versa) you know you can start to spur him with your right leg to get more balance and more points for the ride. Your sitting up on top of him where you know it is feeling right in the middle of his back, on the 6th buck he turns back and bucks out of the spin and goes high in the air and rolls his body one time to see if he can loosen you up enough to throw you off of his back.
He tries one more buck to get you off balance he goes high into the air and you are looking down your arm and all you can see is his back, his neck and his head, you’re back is flat on his back, your feet, your legs are strained from holding on but the adrenalin is still running through your entire body, it doesn’t let you feel the strain on all your joints, your mussels, just your whole body, and you have beaten him at his own trick and you have put up a very good ride and you start to look for the way off the bull and you loosen your grip and he bucks the rope out of your hand, it has come loose enough for you to pull your hand out of the rope. You know that the tail of the rope can wrap around your spur and drag you along with the bull while he is still bucking so you pay attention to that as well. (bad place to be, lots of things can go wrong when it or if does happen).
He throws you further and you land on your feet or face first into the dirt but you don’t care you race to the fence to get to safety while the clowns go in and take him away from you, you stand there and you face him and he is facing you and he knows he has been beaten and in a funny way he acknowledges you by shaking his head. You do the same thing in away by nodding your head back at him, those eight seconds it takes to ride that animal (it seems like 8 hours), with that much energy going through his veins it gets into your own veins, so the rush, the thrill, the electricity, the excitement that you get from it you could not explain in words. That is what it is like to be a bull rider. Through the eyes of a bull rider.
