What this paper is about is to see if Bull Riding is actually safe or if it is an all around dangerous sport. It will talking about all the safety equipment and a story or two about someone getting hurt and ruining their career do the thing they love.

Before 1989 no one cared about safety in bull riding all you do is put your spurs, and chaps on and rode a bull for 8 seconds. On July 30, 1989 at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Lane Frost just got done riding Takin’ Care of Business which was a 85 point ride he dismounted and landed in the dirt and, Takin’ Care of Business then turned to him and with the side of his horn he hit several of his ribs and broke several of them. When he rose to get out of the ring his ribs punctured his heart instantly killing him. After that people started to get concerned about the safety in the world's most dangerous sport. Best friend and riding buddy Cody Lambert created the kevlar vest in 1990 which after they were created the became mandatory during bull riding.

Mandatory Safety Equipment

Now after that happen safety is a big part of bull riding as a sport. I will tell you what the mandatory equipment is. The first thing is a cowboy hat/ helmet what that is uses for is to keep the riders head from a head injury or needing at minimum stitches. Most riders on the Ford Build Tough Series wears a cowboy hat because they are the best of the best. The BlueDEF series is the semi-professional league most of the riders wear helmets because they are the “newest” riders. Most riders are wanting to trade in their hat for a helmet.

With the amount of head injuries that happen in sports these days. According to traumaticbraininjury.net “this issue is made even worse because there is very little research or data available to analyze the reate of concussions in the sport. The largest available data set was collected from 1981 through 2005 at almost 2,000 Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association-sanctioned events and recorded 859 concussions during various competitions such as calf roping, bareback riding, and bull riding.” They also said “In the professional bull riding circuit, there are no multi-million dollar contracts or unions to protect riders. If you want to get paid, you have to ride. The majority of riders don’t have the extra money to adequately prepare for injury and being out of competition. In the rider’s eyes, the only options are to force themselves to ride or not eat.”

Another vile piece of equipment is the protective vest also known as the kevlar vest. The vest is mandatory to wear. The reason of the vest is so say a bull steps on you it is a cushion so it does not hurt as bad or like with Lane Frost if a bull puts its horns down and puts their horns into your ribs or anything vital like that. Cody Lambert was the one who created the vest after his one of his best friend to a bull. Cody is the Vice President of PBR (Professional Bull Riders).

There is much more pieces of equipment but this is the last vile piece of equipment you need to really know about and that is chaps. Chaps are kind of flashy and the riders will put their sponsors on them but they are just like the vest. Chaps are made out of leather unlike the vest which is made out of a breathable leather mesh kind of material. The chaps are worn on your legs and are an extra piece of cushion so if you take a blow to your legs from the bull or land weird during a wreck or if you get hung up.

For minimum damage to the body, another piece of equipment is the glove. Now the glove you may think is not that important. The glove is actually more important than you think it protects the rider’s riding hand from getting rope burn, blisters, and or losing the circulation because the rope would be too tight. The glove is also helps the rider stay on besides balance, the leather on the glove helps keep traction on the bull rope. Also if you get hung up you can use the glove to slip your hand out of the rope area if you can. To help the glove stay on the rope besides just holding on for eight seconds is rosin. All rosin is, is an adhesive for the glove to stick to the bull rope.

Bull rope is made of nylon or grass and it is not round is flat, and it goes around the bull’s girth area right in front of the back legs of the bull. The rider uses the rope to hold on to. With how the rope sits on the bull it may look like it might hurt the bull, with how it is made and how it sits on the bull they really do not feel it and it does not bother them.

Spurs, they go on your boots and they help control control the bull when riding. What you do with them is stick your heel into the sides of the bull and that is how you can rotate the bull and get more points. What a spur is, is a like a spike ball of metal on the back of your heels. But do not worry it does not hurt the bull like you might think. The spikes are dull, the edges are practically flat and so it just helps the rider show who is in control.

The last thing for safety equipment is the cowboy boot. The cowboy boot helps protect your foot from most of the pain from bull riding. It is also made with a special ridge on the heal to help keep your spurs in place. Most riders use the traditional slip-on boot, but more and more of the new riders are starting to use cowboy boots that slip-on with laces, so they can tie their boots and have a better fit around your foot.

The facts its not safe

Dale Butterwick from the University of Calgary discovered that 49 fatal injuries from 1989 to 2009 lead to 21 deaths (theadventurists.com). Of the 21 deaths he found that two of the deaths were because of some sort of head injury and not wearing and helmet and 16 of them were because they were kicked in the chest. Normally when bull riding you would not be kicked in the chest it would be more like landed on, the only way you could really be kicked is if you do not clear out quick enough after a qualifying ride or running away after a wreck.

Most of the time injuries occur when a wreck happens and the rider gets slammed or just can not get away. If you get a good solid qualified ride, and get off the bull clean there is a really good chance of not getting hurt all you have to run to the side and let the bullfighter/rodeo clown do there job and to protect you.

Bullfighter/rodeo clown train to protect the rider while in the arena so the rider has a better chance of not getting hurt. Bull riders get hurt a lot but the fighters take a lot of the so called heat. If you get hung up depending on how you get hung up depends on if the fighters distract the bull while you try to untangle yourself or if they have to distract the bull and untangle the rider so the rider does not get as hurt as he could. Besides saving the bull rider's’ life if need be the bullfighter/ rodeo clown also has to be able to entertain the crowd. So besides being the “comedy act” of the night they are also lifesavers and are very important to bull riders as a whole.

Conclusion

In conclusion bull riding is more of a dangerous sport than football or hockey. With the amount of injuries and the fact you can die a lot easier just from getting thrown off the bull. It does not matter if you get stepped on or not. That is why bull riding is called the most dangerous sport on dirt, and it will probably stay like this until someone either says it is too dangerous or someone discovers a sport worse than this one.

Work Cited

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