“Sport” is a broad term. Under its umbrella, we keep a whole lot of different things: team games, ball games, games of speed and more. Then there’s bull riding. Rodeo seems to occupy a fringe of the sports world in which the raw conflict that is inherent to competition has been boiled down to its most elemental ingredients. It’s just man Vs animal for all of a few seconds, and it’s about as intense as things get.

Few sports properly involve the pitting of a man or woman against a beast, since it’s unpredictable and often dangerous. Rodeo sports, of course, are no different, and that’s why those rodeo clowns are out there distracting the bulls constantly so that they don’t get too overeager with those horns of theirs. What results, however, is a sport that requires a tremendous amount of skill and strength from its practitioners, who are contesting with animals that weigh thousands of pounds and generally seem pretty angry.