"The chute door swung open and the bull squatted, leaped into the waiting silence and a paroxysm of twists, belly-rolls and spins, skipping, bucking and whirling, powerful drop, gave him the whole menu."
– The Mud Below, by Annie Proulx
There are plenty of different ways to feel alone in this world. But few are as complete as the sense that comes over you in the moment before that chute door swings open.
Sure, there's the roar of the crowd. The shouted orders of the chute boss. The slaps of encouragement from friends and the inquiring nods of the gate pullers. But all that seems a universe away once you've lowered yourself atop a snorting, banging, slobbering leather bag of explosive fury. Rodeo is a study in potential energy. Like sitting on an atom bomb. Alone.
The Globe and Mail's feature, "Eight seconds: The life and death of a cowboy," recently took a close look at the physics and metaphysics of Canadian rodeo, and the looming collision between an ancient cowboy code and modern, risk-averse sentiment.
Just as Ty Pozzobon's young career as a champion bull rider was blossoming, he was also suffering the effects of repeated concussions – medical evidence suggested 20 instances of bleeding within his brain – incurred during eight years riding bulls. After he took his own life earlier this year at 25, an autopsy confirmed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative neurological condition associated with repeated head trauma and frequently diagnosed in former professional football and hockey players. CTE has put all contact sports on the defensive.
With many animal rights groups already demanding an end to rodeo on cruelty grounds, further proof of its deadly impact on human participants can only increase the existential pressure on rodeo. Helmets have been mandatory for all but the oldest bull riders since 2013. Medical advocacy has also greatly increased and many riders actually take their doctors' advice now, according to The Globe's feature.
Thirty years ago, I dabbled in bareback bronc riding while working on a ranch near Cody, Wyo. It was an exciting and exotic pursuit for a young university graduate from Ontario. Bull riding, however, made far less sense to this economics major. When a horse bucks you off, it's happy enough to trot away for a good feed. When bulls throw their riders, however, they're not so quick to head for the exit. A bull will often circle around to make sure that bothersome pest never gets on its back again. Such malicious intent, and the vast difference in size, explain the outsized risks faced by bull riders.
All this was bunkhouse lore long before medical science proved it so. Nonetheless, among the other wranglers on the ranch all those years ago, bull riding was widely preferred over broncs. Trying to stay on a 1,600-pound beast intent on doing you physical harm was simply the toughest thing anyone could think of doing. Rodeo, and bull riding in particular, is popular and culturally significant in many parts of Canada largely because it represents the ultimate test of gall and guts. The skill on display is a willingness to face the threat of injury or death without complaint. Few human activities are so focused on the danger inherent to the act, and with such dramatically poor odds.
The neurological trauma and related impacts experienced by rodeo stars such as Mr. Pozzobon have clear parallels in other male-dominated warrior pursuits. Yet professional sports boast an obvious camaraderie of support, as well as a central organizing structure that can impose change when necessary. In 1905, for example, 18 U.S. football players died on the playing field due to the brutal nature of the sport at the time. Vast public outrage led to dramatic rule changes, including the invention of the forward pass, which quieted critics − for a century, at least. The same sense of shared responsibility holds true in military service as well. The Navy Seal's motto of "two is one and one is none" speaks to the collective nature of individual safety in an intrinsically deadly occupation.
Such collectivism doesn't hold for cowboys. Independence and solitude have always been central to cowboy mythology, and that remains the case today in rodeo. There are no teams of rough stock rodeo riders and no one to tell them what to do. They remain private contractors who pick their own schedules and make their own decisions on whether they're fit to ride.
The taciturn figure beloved of western movies who lives by a code of his own choosing, clears the town of villains and rides off alone into sunset thus has its real-life analogue in the battered but determined bull rider rosining up for another go-round. Deliberately putting oneself in harm's way is part of this time-honoured tradition. So is a cool sense of detachment. Safer rodeo, if such a thing is possible, will require a dramatic break in the cowboy customs of individuality, freedom and looking danger straight in the bull's eye. Otherwise, it could be heading for its final sunset.