Fiesta Bull Riding/Rodeo Action!

By Robert Bernstein

Professional Bull Riding and the Rodeo are two of the most action-packed parts of Fiesta. They have been controversial in the past, with animal rights protests. This year there were no protests.

Here are all my videos and photos of two nights of the action!

Thursday was the Professional Bull Riding event and it began with an opening ceremony:

I was not pleased that part of the ceremony was a prayer. Not sure who decides these things.

Then came “Mutton Busting” where very young children hold onto a sheep who runs across the field.

Apparently the sheep is driven by the urge to join the herd on the other side.

Half the fun is watching the other people. It is quite a diverse crowd.

We were sitting with a family visiting from New Zealand. We also met this young couple who are UCSB students:

Then the Professional Bull Riding began. It went on from about 7:30PM to 10PM. But it is not non-stop action. Most of the time is a process of getting the bull and the rider set up behind the gate.

Sometimes the rider is thrown off immediately out of the gate

When the rider is thrown off, sometimes the bull seeks revenge as in this case of it butting the rider’s butt:

A small team stands by to distract the bull as it charges the thrown rider:

But then there are the extraordinary riders who manage to stay on a wildly bucking bull for more than eight seconds as a buzzer sounds. That is the time to qualify for the final round. Only a handful of riders managed that heroic task.

It is stunning to watch the massive bull leap into the air with all limbs off the ground!

Here are two videos I made of riders who made it for more than eight seconds:

This guy wisely made it off the bull onto the gate railing

Then we were back Friday night for the full Rodeo experience with many different competitions.

Roping was one skill on display. The horse rider lassos the steer and ties its legs. Many of the riders were so skilled it was done perfectly on the first cast of the lasso and it is all over in a few seconds!

In addition to solo roping is team roping. One horse rider lassos the horns of the steer and the other lassos the hind legs. The legs are way harder and it does not even look real!

Then there was the bronco riding. It is similar to the bull riding in some ways. But horses can also bite and kick. Fortunately, we did not see any of that.

Just lots of bucking action starting with this old timer

Who looked quite injured after he was thrown off

But they claim he likes to keep coming back and doing it again

Many of the riders managed to stay on for the entire qualifying time, then were escorted off by other riders

Even when the horse completely left the ground with all four limbs

But plenty of other riders were thrown off

One other Rodeo event was barrel racing by women riders. They raced their horses around three barrels on the field at exceptional speed

One of the competitions for which I did not get a good video: Team Penning. A herd of cattle has numbers. The team of three horse riders has to pick out three cattle with the same number and herd them into a pen. The number is announced on the spot and the challenge begins. It seemed utterly impossible.

They have just 90 seconds to find each numbered cow, separate it from the herd and get it in the pen. The cows want to stay with the big herd. We were astonished when one team actually met the challenge!

The Rodeo seems a bit hard on the cattle, horses and humans at times. But the action and skill is certainly impressive!