Cowboys and bulls at the Oyen Bull-A-Rama

The Bull-A-Rama at Oyen is a bullriding and bloodless bullfighting event held in late July

The dirt in the ring flew, the excitement was electric and I was transfixed by the guy on the back of a huge black bull. A local told me “it’s not if the bullrider gets hurt but when!” We were at the Oyen Bull-A-Rama, a professional bullriding and bloodless bullfighting event held in late July every year. Oyen, Alberta is a town of 1200 near the Saskatchewan border. We stopped here on our way down to Medicine Hat. The event turned out to be one of our trip highlights. If you want to meet real cowboys, a small town rodeo is the way to go. This event was awash with Wrangler jeans, big silver belt buckles and cowboy hats. Everyone, and I mean everyone was wearing Wranglers which I figured meant something, so I did a bit of research and found this interesting New York Times story on why.

Unlike the Calgary Stampede, spectators can get up close and personal at these local events

I also discovered that a big silver belt buckle is the sure sign of a rodeo champ and that young women who chase professional bullriders are known as “buckle bunnies”. We saw plenty of both at the Oyen Bull-A-Rama.

While Glenn snapped pictures from the announcer’s booth, I took to the outdoor stands. That’s where I caught up with Debbie Ross. She’s married to a former bronco champ, is the mother of a young bullrider and she’s a Professional Bullriders Association (PBR) volunteer. This woman knows  bullriding. She gave me all kinds of pointers. The position of a bullrider’s hand in the air for example. It’s crucial.So is the position of a bullrider’s chin. It should be down and his chest and toes out while the elbows kept in. Debbie told me that the chin down helps a rider understand which direction his bull is going to go. This is important since getting wacked by a bull whipping his head around is likely do real damage. I’m sure that’s why  some bullriders were sporting full protective head gear.

Rodeo riders are like hockey players in Canada. They start very young. They first learn to ride on the backs of sheep then they graduate to young steers and by sixteen, they’ve moved on to young bulls. The average pro rider is anywhere between eighteen and twenty-five years old. Bulls bred for rodeo are generally from three to seven years old. Each bull has a distinct personality as we discovered that night. Did you know that when a bull wags his tail, it means he’s excited? There were a lot of wagging of tails that night. There were a lot of bulls too. Thirty in all.

The Girletz kid from nearby Cereal took the big silver buckle home. His family breeds “stock” (bulls for bullriding) and the kid is from a long line of bullriders. Even the family matriarch is famous. In 2007, she was inducted into the Canadian Rodeo Hall of Fame for her expert timekeeping skills.