Friday Night at the Rodeo

This one might be short on words… but long on photos. If you’re looking for an easy read than today’s your lucky day!

While we only spent two days at our friends’ cabin on Flathead Lake, Montana, we were there at the perfect time.

The Northwest Montana Fair and Rodeo was going on that weekend.

I’m a little sorry we weren’t able to stay through Sunday, because the Demolition Derby was happening on Sunday night and neither one of us has ever been to a Demolition Derby.

But we were there on Friday night. And that meant we got to go to the rodeo.

Look, I’m not the hugest rodeo fan – I generally think of beer and not bull riding when I see the initials PBR.  I don’t know who any of the famous guys are. But I do know that small town rodeos are the best. I got to go to the Loveland, Colorado rodeo back when it was still a small-time affair, and I learned that at a smaller rodeo you can get closer to the action. (Unlike, say, the National Western Stockshow’s rodeo in Denver, where you pretty much needed binoculars to see anything.)

As close as we were, I still had to use my 55-200mm zoom lens, although I was cool with that because I have been dying to put that lens through some paces. What I quickly learned was a few deficiencies of my camera (a Nikon D90). It’s supposed to shoot in multiples at 3 frames per second. And it does… at first. I found that after about 5 seconds that rate slowed down quite a bit. Also, I had to shoot at a pretty high ISO due to the low light, and a lot of the images were grainy (the digital term is “noise”) when I enlarged them.

Minor complaints, really. It’s not like I’m going to run off and become a rodeo photographer. Besides, I did manage to get some pretty good images. Like this one:

And this one, of rider Jesse Kruse:

Not all of the bronco riders fared well, though.

 

Of course, bronco busting was only the first event. There was also calf roping…

 

 

 

 

 

and barrel racing, and steer wrestling…

And my personal favorite, the two-man calf roping. Here’s why it’s my favorite event: A long time ago, in college, I was on a trip with a bunch of other students. It was summertime and we were in a small Colorado town. I honestly don’t remember where. After dinner we walked back to where we were staying; I think it was part of the fairgrounds. It was right next to a rodeo ring. A group of local cowboys were practicing their two-man calf roping, and these guys were more than happy to explain how it works. To me, it sounded like the hardest event in rodeo. It requires some pretty serious skill.

The event begins with two riders, one on either side of the calf.

 

The first rider ropes the calf by the horns (who wears special protective headgear), and in doing so turns the calf away from the second rider.

 

Now, throwing a rope at a moving target sounds hard enough, but I think the second rider has the toughest job. Because what he has to do is throw the rope so that it lands right before the calf’s feet do. Kind of like this:

The second rider throws the rope, the calf steps into it, and the rider snaps up the rope, trapping the calf.

This is one of those events that is so much harder than it looks. And it looks pretty hard.

There was an event at this rodeo that I’d never seen before, and that was the Indian Relay Race. I had no idea but this is a sport that goes back 400 years. And these days the Northwest Montana Fair and Rodeo is one of the few places to see one.

The Indian Relay Race is a bareback horse race. There are four teams and the goal is for a single rider (one from each team) to circle the track three times, using a different horse for each lap. The first man to cross the finish line after three laps is the winner.

Sounds simple, right? Let me tell you: It’s chaos.

First of all, it’s a race – these guys are riding at a full gallop. And when they come into the “pit” they barely slow down at all. They launch off the back of one horse, run to the next horse, jump on, and take off. Bareback.

And all those people you see standing there? They’re handlers for the other horses. Somebody has to grab first horse as the rider dismounts (can you imagine that job? Trying to grab the reins of a 1,000 lb animal that coming at you full force?), and someone has to the hold the horse the rider is trying to jump onto – if a horse gets away, the rider can be disqualified.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And believe me, those horses try to get away. In fact, it’s at this exchange of horses that the potential for carnage is greatest. Apparently collisions among riders and horses are quite common, as are downed riders and riderless horses.

 

The crowd was thrilled when this horse reared up, and even more thrilled when the rider got the animal back under control and rode out to the track.

 

There actually was a collision on Friday night, between three horses, but everyone stayed on their horse and everyone finished. I have to tell you – the Indian Relay Race was one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever watched.