There was an event held at a local fairgrounds this past weekend and I saw it involved a rodeo, I had a lot of fun shooting the last one so the wife and I headed up there. It was hot and sunny out, we got there about an hour and a half early so I could stake out prime real estate at the fence. We sat and waited, they had some cute things going on with kids in the ring before the actual rodeo. There were some shoeless races and barrel racing on hobby horses then things got serious and they brought in the sheep. That’s right, mutton busting!

They ramped things in to high gear following that since they were running a bit behind, there was a cavalcade of the rodeo participants. I would have loved to get a shot but I would have had to move up to a higher level and at this point the stands were filled. There was the national anthem and a brief prayer, they had a future rodeo star out with the flag.

Then it was straight in to the competition, first up was the bareback bronco busting (say that five times fast), a contestant readies his horse – you can tell he’s a real cowboy, giant bandage on his arm and he’s still going to ride.

There were some good rides but few scores, it was a rough day for the riders, as you can see.

They moved in to roping and tying competitions following that, here’s a shot of a cowboy as he flips a calf for the singles roping competition.

The cowboy and his horse had to work together, after the initial lasso the horse has to keep tension on the rope until the cowboy can get that calf flipped and tied.

We had a surprise celebrity guest show up, strangely the rodeo clown was absent for a while.

The clown kept up a good banter through the evening, poking fun at some of us around the ring with cameras, myself included.

Team roping and steer wrestling followed the halftime show, there were only a couple of successful passes in each category. It was still exciting to watch, it’s a real sport when someone tries to physically take down an animal that not only weighs three to four times their weight but also has sharp hooves and horns.

They followed that up with barrel racing, that was a rapid fire affair since they were running late on time. They had to make sure they got in the main event:

The cowboys sat and watched it all until the end where you can see more shots from the rodeo.