Tag Archives: broomtails

Whoa! Legless Bronco Busting

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Legless Bronco Busting!!!

Hang on to your hats ladies and Gentlemen! Here’s the latest in Rodeo events, the newest, the wildest, the craziest yet, its LEGLESS BRONCO BUSTING!!! That’s right we said it, you heard it, Legless Bronco Busting. The new event that’s sweeping the rodeo circuits from Texas to Oklahoma, Wyoming to Oregon, Colorado to, well you get the picture. It’s everywhere. Are you bored with the same old wild mustang bucking horses that come out and jump around the arena for a while doing stupefying flying leaps and incredible horse-like acrobatics while trying to unseat its rider. The spectacular has become boring. You’ve seen it all before and you’re tired of it. So all that’s left is to head to the refreshment stand and drink some beer to break the boredom. Better to go hammer back a dozen longnecks then watch the same old Crow hop, sidestep, Sunfish, swap ends, flip over backward, bite you in the loading chutes, tired old antics of conventional buckers. If that’s where you’re at then this newest of the new events Legless Bronco Busting is right up your alley.

What’s wrong with the old stuff? Why do we need a new event? Well that’s easy. If you’ve been to a World Championship rodeo, say like the one in Vegas or Tucson with all that prize money and seen the same old dusty world champion cowboys riding the same old tired world-class bucking stock. Staying on for 8 seconds, throwing their hats in the air, wearing those big fancy belt buckles, lip packed full of Skoal, you know that deep down you’d like to see something fresh, something new, something that puts the shine back on your chaps. Well Legless Bronco Busting is just the ticket.

A little history about the event. Bronco busting has been around since way before Gene Autry or Roy Rodgers. It goes way back. Back even before Lash LaRue. Some say it was the first event ever held and prepared the world for what we now know as RODEO. Don’t know if I’d go that far, but it has been around for a long time. Way before TV anyway. But it’s gotten a little stale. The Boomer generation, which has practically ruled the world ever since they came into being, is getting a little long in the tooth. Aging, getting old. Some of them are way into their late 60’s 70’s and even their early 80’s and they still want to rodeo. They still want to ride the big rides. They still want to go the saloon for a shot and a beer and a fistfight. They want to chase, or at least shuffle, after those long-legged but buxom cowgirls that hang out in those smoky, whiskey infused places. They want to win those big belt buckles to complement their wide suspenders. They’re not done yet, not by any means. But what to do? They can’t even crawl up the sides of those loading chutes to board a bronc let alone stick on anything but a toilet seat for 8 seconds.

That’s where the genius of modern technology comes into play. Science in other words,  the same stuff that brought you global warming. You all heard of genetic modification, or the cloning of that sheep, Dolly. That’s all done with science. You put some DNA into the hopper, usually about 6 or 7 pounds depending on what you want to make, dial-up what new  animal you want, flip the 440 electrical switch and stand back as out pops a new sheep or goat or in this case a new kind of horse. That’s the secret right there to this newest of new rodeo events. A Legless horse. They made a legless horse! Cool beans, right? Well to be accurate the horse isn’t totally legless, that wouldn’t work, those suckers are heavy, no, it’s just a horse with radically shortened legs. Like only 6-8 in. long not counting the hooves. Using a mix of DNA from Lipizzaner stock out of Austria, known for it’s jumping ability, some Percheron stock out of France for its wide back, some Black Forest Horse, also called the Black Forest cold blood or Schwarzwälder Kaltblut, because it’s the rarest horse in the world and the guys doing this had a lot of money, and last but not least some DNA from a few broomtails out of the west Texas hill country because there was some left in the bottom of the bucket from another experiment.

What they got was the Legless horse, the meanest, orneriest, most unforgiving bucking stock on practically no legs. Now boomer cowboys can march up to the chutes, park their walker next to the gate, sort of lean over the back and fall on. It’s like getting on a Roomba that eats hay. The chute door opens and they hang on for dear life as the horse wallows and pitches and jumps dizzyingly into the air, leaps are often as high as 6-8 inches before slamming back down to earth in a bone-jarring crash, twirls slowly, rears back and does its damnest to throw that octogenarian rider into the next county. As you can see in the image above it’s a wild ride. Dust is flying, the horse is trying to rear up, it’s rolling and leaping, the ride is terrifying. So much so that you can see the rider clutching one of the stanchions of the chute gate thinking to save his life. Disqualifying for sure, but better than dying. No score for him today.

There it is folks, Legless Bronco Busting, the newest most electrifying rodeo event to come down the road since *Horse Spinning. Watch the PRCA circuit for its inclusion in its next major rodeo and don’t be surprised if it becomes a world-wide sensation. I know I will be.

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

The Maiden Voyage of the Bokeh Maru – Day 6

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Day 6 Mustangs!

There isn’t much that says the West like wild horses, Mustangs, or Broomtails as they’re sometimes called. The mental image one gets upon hearing those names immediately brings to mind long rolling hills, or desert flats, or herds grouped around the only water hole for miles. I see herds of horses running free before the wind, manes flying, hooves flashing, heads thrown back in the sheer joy of being free, racing from one part of their territory to another to do whatever wild horses do.

There is a place outside of Cody, Wyoming called McCullough Peaks and it is the home of a magnificent herd of wild horses numbering over 120 or so at last count. The terrain is made-up of slight hills and huge sweeping valleys, green at this time of year, dusty and grey as summer progresses and the heat dries out the summer grass and the watering spots.

The herd is usually made up of one or more stallions, a bunch of mares, and of course the resulting colts. These are not your typical herd of horses, standing quietly, heads down, waiting for whatever use we have for them. These are independent horses, aggressive, willful, wild, doing what they want to do, totally involved in their lives, not ours. They need to be approached carefully and not too close at that, as they, especially the stallions, will not tolerate any interference or threat and will defend themselves and the rest of the herd without warning. A person on foot is at risk here.

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The herd was located at a water hole 10 miles or so off the highway and reached by driving over a gravel road that soon turned to two ruts with spring grass growing up between them. We forded a small stream and as we came over the rise, there they were. The herd was clustered around the water hole quietly resting and drinking and calm.

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Calm didn’t mean motionless however and various small groups would break off from the main herd and run great circles around the water hole, racing the wind if nothing else.

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There is always drama in a horse herd, especially one that has more than one stallion. This herd had at least 5, possibly more as some of the herd was behind one of the low-lying hills. Suddenly and without warning a fight would break out and two of the stallions would battle until whatever disagreement they had was settled. These fights were serious but not deadly as they can sometimes be at the height of the rut. No blood was drawn but pain was definitely inflicted.

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The stallions weren’t the only ones that could get up a head of steam. The mares with colts wouldn’t tolerate any other animal to approach too closely to her offspring and would lash out with a jaw-breaking kick from her rear hooves to the offender. That usually got her point across.

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What appeared at first to be a calm setting was in fact a continual series of altercations, dust-ups, sparring, establishing who the bull duck in the pond was, and perhaps an opportunity to refine a few tactics if the fight got really serious. There were knee-biters.

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Neck-biters. Kickers, chewers, bumpers, runner away-ers, chasers, loud screamers, interested observers, dis-interested observers, ignorers and winners. And also losers.

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After several hours that sped by in seconds the herd finally finished their morning absolutions and headed off into the distance to their next destination. Their pace was slow and steady, paced about right for the foals to keep up. One mare leading the way, the stallions bringing up the rear, sometimes racing ahead then returning to take up rear guard again. It was as magical to see them leave as it was to see them arrive. It seemed that they had the entire west to travel in. They didn’t of course, highways and train tracks and fences and ranches and every kind of man-made obstacle we have created prevented that. This isn’t a gripe with the present, we all know that the facts of life are what they are. We co-exist. But it is incredible fulfilling to think that we have horses like these still running free.

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Earlier I mentioned about these horses being different. These horses, although wild, are looked after by the BLM and protected from many of the dangers from the outside world. The BLM researchers have done DNA testing on this stock and found that some of them can be traced back to the Spanish explorers losing them and some of the others have been traced back to the horses that were given to Buffalo Bill Cody by the Queen of England when he toured there with his wild west show in the late 1800’s.

The most different thing for me though, is that this is what freedom looks like. Can he be any more confident and proud, his head held high, displaying the bite wounds of his previous battles on his side, looking forward to the rest of what ever comes his way. Wild and free. Hopefully forever.

Muley Point

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Well maybe you are at a point in your life where everything seems a little unsatisfactory, maybe even a little boring. You’re at your job and it may seem as if you will be at your job forever, stuck there when you rather be off doing something carefree, exciting, out of the ordinary, wild. But you know, common sense rears its ugly head and you understand that you can’t just drop everything and run off to do the wild thing, you have responsibilities and you are a responsible person. But man, wouldn’t it be cool if you could suddenly transport yourself somewhere else, like into the mind of one of these wild horses running free up on the high plateau of Muley point. To experience what they experience, to feel the solid thud of your hooves hitting the ground, the wind blowing through your mane, your only worry finding the next grazing site. You can find comfort in the fact that in this chaotic time we live in there are still those beings that are free, like these broomtails racing towards the waterhole, unaccountable to anyone but themselves, just happy to be alive and hopefully it will help get you through another day, I know it works for me.