Bull Steering

In the past we here at BigShotsNow.com have tried to bring you the newest, most up to date information about all things rodeo. We have told you about guys and sometimes girls that get on bucking broncos and try not to get bucked off. We’ve told you about great big guys that jump on little calves from their horses and wrestle them to the ground just to show they can. We’ve showed you pert but sassy cowgirls that race barrels for fun and profit, and even though the barrels don’t move, they, the pert and sassy cowgirls, win. We have even covered the occasional event where bulls, great big ferocious ones, are ridden by cowboys who have nothing better to do but test their major medical coverage.

But where we excel and you can ask anybody about this, is bringing you the newest most up to the minute news about new events in the competitive rodeo world. We’re talking brand new never before seen events that are changing the very face of todays rodeo.

Bull Steering is one of the newest events and by gad it’s a doozy. In fact, it is the newest event to try and interject some liveliness back into the old boring rodeo your grandma went to. It’s new! It’s exciting! It has the tantalizing elements of skill, danger, and uniqueness unseen until now! It is in fact, unbelievable. Plus it’s simple so neither the cowboys or the bulls need to be retrained to perform in this event. They can get together and just do it. Essentially it’s similar to bull riding but instead of getting on the bull’s back and hanging on while the bull tries to snap the cowboys head off, or he makes it to 8 seconds and completes the ride, the cowboy instead mounts and sits on top of the bull’s head as seen in the image above and grasping it’s horns rigidly but tightly, steers the bull around the arena by twisting, pushing and pulling on those horns causing the bull to trace out or walk through intricate patterns on the arena floor. Figures such as a simple circle, or perhaps a figure eight, or for those going for the big bucks, tracing the Texas star in the middle of the arena. This must all be done by the gentle nudging of the bull’s horns by the cowboy to direct the bull in the necessary direction to complete the pattern. Of course as in all rodeo events sometimes the bull doesn’t want to do it. Just says no and refuses. After all he doesn’t have to be there and due to his belligerent nature won’t participate. That ‘s when the rider needs to use all of his persuasive powers to crank those horns around and make that bull perform. Unlike the 8 second limit in the conventional bull riding event the rider and his bull have 15 minutes to complete a pattern to qualify. If the rider is thrown before that time limit, or the bull doesn’t execute a complete recognizable pattern then they are disqualified. Points are given according to the complexity of the pattern, quickness of completion, the congenial attitude or lack of it by the bull, and the cowboys ability not to faceplant in front of the bull and get stepped on, thereby disqualifying them both.

This event, “Bull Steering”, has never been seen yet in a PRCA rodeo or even some of the lesser known ones like Cheyenne Days or the Calgary Stampede. We found it at one of the smaller independent rodeos, “Stan and Molly’s Fudge Festival and Rodeo Day in Kerseyville, Nebraska. This wasn’t the biggest rodeo we’ve attended and the prize money was dependent on how much fudge Mary sold but it was a good one. Mary was nice, Stan could have been a little nicer but as he only had the one bull and he had to turn it around and get it ready for the next contestant all day long, he could be forgiven for being a little surly.

As always we try and present the newest things happening in the rodeo world before anyone else gloms on to it and spoils it by telling the truth and that’s just what we’ve done today. Here are a few of the other rodeo stories we were first on reporting. If you want to be ahead of your time and are on any of the major rodeo boards that schedule new events please contact us for leasing information. We represent Stan and Molly, well actually Molly as Stan is pretty hard to deal with. We believe this is an event the public should see.

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/horse-spinning

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/whoa-legless-bronco-busting/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/dancing-with-the-bulls/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/hang-time/.

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/sweet-nothings/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/bull-riding-not-aways-a-love-story/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/3-ways-to-get-a-bull-to-do-what-you-want/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/the-mediator/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/back-to-the-classics/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/so-much-havoc-so-little-time/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/red-chaps-in-the-sunset/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/leaps-and-bounds-bull-riding-at-crow-fair-2018/

Jumping The Bull

There is a phrase used fairly often, though not as much as it used to be, called Jumping the Shark. It loosely means something that was very popular and trendy that is now losing its popularity and beginning to fade away. TV shows that were ground breaking in some way, sensational due to their unusual and surprisingly defiant approach to current norms, now are becoming stale and outdated. The exact point where the decline started is where they jumped the shark and became irrelevant.

What we have here is a new phrase born out of the rodeo community, Jumping The Bull, which is the exact opposite of Jumping The Shark in every way. When you Jump the Bull you are doing something that is so extraordinary there is no chance that it will become dated or boring. You can watch that over and over and not get tired of it. When a two thousand pound ferocious and dangerous animal runs by you and you decide to jump over it knowing full well what the catastrophic consequences are if you screw it up, that’s Jumping The Bull.

The participants in this event are one of the rodeo clowns and his angry companion, an American fighting bull. Having just ejected his original rider and still filled with the blood lust of the battle, wanting nothing more than to destroy anyone near it, the bull races around the arena looking for anyone to vent its fury on, especially the fallen rider. It’s the rodeo clown’s job to keep it distracted while the original rider gets to safety. In this case the rodeo clown felt there was nothing left to do to get the animals attention but to jump over it. That may sound like the least likely approach to handle the situation but then this is not your normal situation. Anything goes in a deal like this. So the message here can be if you find yourself in a similar situation of being in a hot dusty arena with a maddened two thousand pound fighting bull charging down on you, well, simply jump over it and go get a coffee. It worked for this guy.