Why Do Conservatives Love Cowboy Culture?

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96. Can rodeo be safer and still be rodeo?

OPINION

Can rodeo be safer – and still be rodeo?

PETER SHAWN TAYLOR
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
NOVEMBER 18, 2017

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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.