A Devil of a Bull : Charros Brave 10-Second Ride on Massive Beast

Diablo, a gray Brahman bull that the charros (cowboys) approached with an uneasy mixture of respect and apprehension, waited in a pen at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena on Sunday morning.

Although his dark eyes revealed no rage, it was clear that Diablo, as he jostled his pen mates in the pleasant sunshine, did not tend toward congeniality. Whoever would attempt to ride this horned, thick-carcassed 2,000-pound well-named beast during the charreada (rodeo) would be in for a devil of a time.

“They’re telling me it’s my turn to ride him,” said Heraclio Guitron, a charro fancily clad in an outfit that included chaps and a large sombrero.

In the arena’s roofed grandstand, 4,500 spectators were settling for the charreada, the nostalgic national sport of Mexico. It would consist of an exhibition of several rodeo events by charros who perform without pay, and a segment of musical entertainment.

“This is our hobby,” said Sergio Duran, the public address announcer. “This is like baseball or football (to Americans).”

Guitron and other charros sat atop the bulls’ pen. A mustachioed, slender man of 24, he drives trucks for a living, but his love for horses has made him a devotee of rodeos since he was 7. “When you come from Mexican parents, it’s the way you’re brought up,” he said. “It’s a family thing, a tradition. If you like it, you stick with it.”

A band played a nostalgic song about Zacatecas, a state in Mexico. And then, about noon, the rodeo began with a festival of balloons, beer and cotton candy.

Diablo and Guitron had to wait for the roping events, in which a wild horse galloped around the red-walled dirt ring, trying to elude four or five riders who tried to lasso one of its hind legs.

In the moments of near-collisions with the wall and their pursuers, the horses looked panicky as they feinted like football halfbacks trying to dodge tacklers.

The bulls, meanwhile, had been ushered into smaller holding pens, from which they would be released with riders aboard. Diablo stayed calm but the others complained about their close confinement with guttural moans and kicks. The pen’s rails rattled savagely.

The riders, after taping their hands, straddled the pens, then eased onto the bulls.

Finally, the gate to Diablo’s pen was opened. Out he bucked, with Guitron affixed to his back. Incredibly, Guitron hung on for about 10 seconds until Diablo flipped him high in the dusty air. It looked as if Guitron had executed, with a gymnast’s grace, a perfect back somersault. The crowd screamed its appreciation.

Back in the pen area, Guitron put on his watch and said he had thought he was going to land on his head.

“He’s tough,” he said of Diablo. “Too strong, too much weight.”

But he was happy: “It feels good to ride something good and do OK.”

After the rodeo events, the crowd remained to hear a mariachi band and Mexican singer Yolanda del Rio, whose silver high heels left prints in the dirt that were barely discernible next to those that the animals had made.

Outside the arena, one of the bull riders and his pregnant wife rested in the shade of a tree. On the man’s neck was a red, swollen welt. A bull had thrown him off, then stepped on him.

“Oh, yeah, it hurts,” said Guillermo Paz, 24.

Paz applied Absorbine Hooflex to his neck. The label on the jar said it was a product used to “maintain pliable hooves” on horses. Paz said it would help stop the swelling.

“I can’t stop him (from riding),” said Elvira Paz.

“She rides bulls, too,” her husband said.

Paz had planned to ride again during the evening show, but the injury would prevent that.

“I wish . . .,” he said.

He said he was mad at the bull, and would be madder the next time he got on him.

Did he know the bull’s name?

“Diablo,” he said.