Lake Havasu Rodeo

Western Rodeo in Lake Havasu City

Yahoo! The rodeo is in town! When you are in the West you just have to go to authentic, outdoor, live, Western rodeo. Nothing can compare! Rodeos are all about cowboys, cowgirls, broncos, steers and clowns. The events are filled with bone crunching, dust-eating action.

Nestled in the Arizona desert between the mountain ranges in the background, the Lake Havasu Rodeo Arena provides the perfect rodeo setting. There’s no better place than this to kick back under the clear blue skies with a cold beer in hand and take in the excitement.

Okay, I grew up in Northern New Jersey where there were no horses, cowboys or even pick-up trucks. The only cowboys I knew of where TV cowboys like the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rodgers. So I have no clue how they score the events or what makes one ride better than another. However, that did lessen the fun and excitement in anyway.

The Setting

To the west. The Whipple Mountains in California.

The desert and mountains in the background.

The Events

I'll try and describe them as best I can.

The wild horse roundup

There are six wild horses. Each horse has a team of 3 cowboys who have to rope the horse, put a saddle on it, then one of them has to get on it and ride between a barrel and the fence. There's a lot of action going on at once in this event.

I don't think the horse cares for the purple shirts much.

I've done this with my Labs. They usually win!

Catch a steer

In this one the cowboy jumps on to a running steer from a perfectly good horse. Then he has to wrestle the steer to the ground.

I'm not sure how you get points for this one. Sometimes the steer gets away, so I guess the steer wins.

Bareback bronco ride

This one one of my favorites. I'm sure these guys get pretty sore after a day of this.

This is how it supposed to look.

Then sometimes this happens.

Or this!

It helps to put your back into it!

It seemed to work for this cowboy!

At least for a little bit, but then the horse won this one!

Even though it doesn't look like he will, this guy hung on!

Saddled bronco ride

Same idea here but with a saddle.

Nice ride!

Two man steer catch

For this one two cowboys on horseback chase the steer. One guy called the "header" ropes the steer's head. The other guy called the "hoof ender" ropes the hind leg.

The header did his job now it the hoof ender's turn.

Bull riding

This one is pretty cool too. The bull often wins this one. It's supposed to be the most dangerous event in any sport.

The bull doesn't like anyone on his back!

Another cowboy gets tossed!

You mess with the bull you get the horns!

This is how you do it!

Barrell races

This is a ladies event. The cowgirl races her horse around three barrels on the course. She races for time against the clock. We save some really nice riding in this one.

She was going so fast she lost her hat!

All in all it was a great action packed day.

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Roger