It’s rodeo time in Houston, that two weeks a year where the city is transformed from the fourth largest city in America to the city that hosts the world’s largest rodeo. The best cowboys around come to compete for massive prize money, and folks flock 70,000 or more a night dressed in their best western wear to see the best the rodeo circuit and the world of music have to offer. The Houston Chronicle sheds light on what it is truly like to be traveling around the country competing in rodeos:

It’s a life — one most competitors inherited from fathers and mothers who lived rodeo before them.

Hundreds of days a year, they crisscross the country, packed into sedans or hauling horse trailers. In locker rooms competitors greet each other as friends as they tape hands, wrap knees and ice injured muscles. In barns they engage in the routines of animal care, brushing, feeding and nurturing the horses that will help them strike gold or accompany them as they return home empty-handed.

Then, chaps, gloves or hat on, they enter the stadium to perform for their living.

“You spend hours and hours getting your horse ready and practicing, traveling, driving up and down the road, and you pull in somewhere and in 16 seconds you’re done, and you get to do it all over again,” said Sherry Cervi, a barrel racer from Arizona.

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo runs through March 22 at Reliant Stadium.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Cowboy Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.