Families arrive with their ponies in trailers, their girls ready for barrel riding and boys ready for calf-roping. Professional and amateur riders show up in pickup trucks, with their chaws of tobacco in their mouths. The frenzied horses kick the stalls with thunderous crashes. Then the bronco blasts out of its stall, whipping the rider around like a dishrag. The bulls, meanwhile, wait calmly in their stalls in the moments before they blow into the ring, toss off the riders and trot off to the corral.
Few riders manage to stay on for the eight seconds required for a score.
Rodeo Queen Kim, of the Cayuse Jr. rodeo. But a rodeo isn't all macho man vs. animal contests. When it's time for the parade, rodeo queens show off their prize ponies, galloping gracefully around the ring. Rodeos large and small, professional and amateur, rock on through the summer. Check the links to the right for details and schedules.