Professional Bull Riding contests are exciting and exhilarating for the spectators and the riders because they involve great feats of human agility, mental alertness and tenacity. Although each rider competes to stay put on the back of the bucking bull for only eight seconds, those eight seconds can mean glory and a pot of gold or a dislocated shoulder or even a broken neck.
Riders aside, the bulls share the limelight and elicit as much admiration and praise as the riders. The names of successful bulls such as Bushwacker and Astroid are legendary in the sport. They have been called incredible and invincible as Bushwacker for example.
Some readers do not know perhaps that when the sport started in the 1990s, the most difficult animals to ride, whether horses or bulls, were chosen for the competitions. But nowadays horses and bulls are ‘bred to buck’ with the welfare of the animal fully taken in consideration. Actually the welfare of the animal involved is the criterion behind those eight seconds beyond which the contest does not.
These are some of the highlights of the first night.
