For a while, north of the border, it’s been rodeo season.
And that means a slew of more rodeos are on their way, with a Niagara of increasingly larger, more elaborate, colorful and dangerous competitions piling up and heading for the (Wrangler) National Finals Rodeo, which is held in the first full week in December.
Organized by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), this season-long competition is seen as the “premier” championship rodeo in the United States. Specifically, this showcases the talents of the PRCA’s top 15 money winners in each of seven rodeo events, competing for the world title in each. One of the lavish runner-up competitions to that ultimate contest often occurs in Houston.
In the 1990’s, wrestling with a bout cancer took me — and my wife — to Houston’s accumulation of medical facilities of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. And to the huge Astrodome, home of the well-known Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, one of the largest live entertainment and livestock exhibitions in the United States.
It is well known by rodeo folks. And I got to know the facility because I was a fan of the 1990 king of the roughest rodeo events, Ty Murray. As a child, Murray was taught rodeo fundamentals by his father and mother. Later his mentor would be world champion bull rider and all-around cowboy, Larry Mahan, who had won more National Finals Rodeo (NFR) first place “All Around Cowboy” championships than anyone in rodeo history.
As youngster Murray competed in the Arizona High School Rodeo Association where he was the All-Around Cowboy and led Arizona to its first National High School Rodeo Association Championship in 1989. He was also the National All-Around Champion that year competing in all the rough-stock events. He went to Odessa College where he competed in rodeo for that school. When he turned 18, he joined the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA). Murray became the youngest PRCA All-Around Rodeo Cowboy, said he made the Guinness Book of Records.
He won the World All-Around Rodeo Champion title seven times (1989-1994, 1998), being the top money-earner in bare-back, saddle-bronc and bull riding events in those years.
The huge Houston Rodeo arena was easy to slip into when workmen were preparing for a coming rodeo. I did that, getting a sense of the vast arena early one afternoon. I also ran into Murray, and struck up a conversation. That led to writing a series on Ty Murray’s accomplishments. He was soft spoken, easy to talk to regarding sensible questions.
I had been placed as a child on ranches and farms, often working most of the time aboard horses. So the two of us had a lot of tales to tell.
His were about utilizing his extraordinary talent in advancing up the professional rodeo ladder.
Though I was a journalist, my younger years were spent doing rough back country rural chores, most of them aboard four-legged, often cranky, animals.
Murray’s parents, while not considered “rich,” were well off. And he was reared from his early years to be a rodeo competitor.
Because we both grew up astride balky mounts, we briefly, jokingly, compared crazy past experiences. Which emphasized our very different skills aboard Equus ferus. Murray’s mounts tended to be carefully chosen and well-bred. And his large personal ranch was the home of pure-bread Quarter Horses. My mounts, had long been mostly furnished by various ranches and farms – many of them poor. They were whatever could be spared to a kid working for his food and keep. Much of that work was riding fence, re-setting loose or fallen posts, re-stringing torn down or trampled barbed-wire, and keeping a sharp eye out for poisonous snakes. Fencing needed straightening, splintered posts needed to be replaced, loose posts re-braced firmly with fair-sized rock, protected from livestock, wild animals, and destructive-prone trespassers. A job that enchanted few people.
Taking a job, I simply asked for a pair of tough-leather gloves, a sugar sack of fence staple nails, and got to work. The gloves, the persistence, and concentration to get the job done kept my whiny imagination mostly at bay. Though I did take plenty of pauses to rest. Remembering my job was to earn my keep: Three squares, a supply of water, a place to sleep that was dry in the spring and warm in the winter.
Sounds dull, but buried rock, visits from bees, wasps, black widows and the presence of unfriendly snakes kept things from being boring. And the rough words I got when I was slow or careless encouraged suitable work.
The bay gelding I rode had ended up in my hands because some words from the canny foreman at one of the ranches I’d worked at. The bay was well behaved. That helped me do my job. I always had to act well-experienced at whatever job was handed me. The foreman easily saw through that. He talked to the ranch boss and got me a chance to buy the gelding bit by bit.
And it wasn’t long before I and the boss’ sons took part in a pick-up rodeo with another ranch. I didn’t win several events I wanted to, but I got some. That meant collecting some money. The foreman shook my hand, and some older hands patted me on the back. I grinned, figuring how soon I’d be able to buy the bay.
That was before Ty’s injuries began to slow him. Before effects of concussions began to get in the way of passing acquaintances.