Rodeo-Active : Hopefuls Still Yearn for Cowboy’s Freedom

Steven Moya works full time as an electrician in the San Fernando Valley, but in his heart he’ll always be a cowboy.

This weekend, the Northridge resident got to act out his dream for a few seconds on the back of a 2,000-pound bull at the Frontier Days Rodeo in Canyon Country.

“It’s in my blood,” Moya, 29, said, just after he hung onto a bucking bull’s back for eight seconds in Friday night’s competition. “I still think about going back on the tour full time.”

Moya has been competing in rodeos on and off for more than seven years, but he took last year off because of injuries. Friday’s ride was part of his comeback bid, and he plans to compete in the bareback horse-riding event tonight.

“Maybe next year, if I can save enough money, I’ll quit my job and give it one more try,” said Moya, who began riding bulls at his grandparents’ ranch near Santa Fe, N.M. “I just want to make it to the national championships--just once.”

For part-time cowboys, weekend rodeos such as Frontier Days are a chance to do what they really wanted to do before getting tied down by jobs and families. It’s also a chance to rub elbows with the elite of the sport.

Into that category fall competitors such as Ted Nuce, 31, who made more than $100,000 last year riding bulls and hasn’t had “a real job” since he graduated from high school in Escalon.

“Look out in the stands. Most of those people you see probably don’t like their jobs,” Nuce said as he prepared to mount a bull Friday night. “Me, I’ve wanted to be a cowboy as long as I can remember and I’ve never done anything else. They dream about this. I get to do it.”

In the animals’ stalls where cowboys gather between events, the superstars and the wanna-bes socialized freely.

“It’s really not elitist,” said Wayne S. Wooden, a sociology professor at Cal Poly Pomona, who attended Friday’s competition and is writing a book on rodeos.

Wooden said the rodeo circuit was revolutionized when the national championships were moved to Las Vegas in 1985 and started to be shown on cable TV. Since then, the payouts have become larger and corporate sponsorship has become more frequent.

For example, a small rodeo like Frontier Days, where only a couple of hundred people showed up on Friday night, still pays out several thousand dollars to winners. Some regional rodeos, such as those in Salinas and Santa Maria, attract 15,000 people or more, Wooden said.

Cable TV also has given the sport more exposure to non-cowboys.

“It’s a mixture between a sport and an entertainment,” said Wooden, who teaches a course called “The Cowboy in Contemporary Society.” “It keeps the dream of the frontier alive for people. . . . It reminds us of simpler times.”

As a sport, rodeo is indeed simple, but challenging. The competition--not to mention the bruises and fractures--makes it a tough go for newcomers.

Moya broke his wrist last year. Rick Bradley, who hitchhikes from one rodeo to the next hoping for a big payout, cracked his tailbone last year and wears a special pad under his blue jeans. Nuce hasn’t broken anything, but has “more bumps and bruises than I can count.”

Even so, the competitors agree that the danger adds to the thrill.

“Do you ever have any second thoughts before getting in a car in L.A.? That’s pretty dangerous too, you know,” said Nuce, the nation’s top bull rider in 1986. “Bull riding is like driving: You think about getting to your destination--you’re not focused on the chance you’ll get killed.”

Bull riding is considered the roughest, toughest event in the rodeo. On its face, it’s a preposterous notion. A man who weighs maybe 200 pounds tries--with one hand and two legs--to hang onto the back of a one-ton bull that is trying to shake him loose.

If you can hang on for all of eight seconds, then you’ve made the first cut.

Under rules used by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn., which includes virtually all major and minor rodeos, that’s how long bull riders have to stay on in order to score. The numbers are based on the judges’ highly subjective rating of a rider’s grace under pressure and the zeal with which the bull tried to shake him loose.

Therefore, the best rider can lose because he got stuck with a friendly bull that day.

Bulls are assigned to riders in a random draw. All the cowboys hope for a nasty one, which in cowboy jargon is called “a money bull.”

“I just didn’t get a good one,” said Greg Armstrong of Payson, Ariz., after achieving a respectable score but finishing out of the money Friday night. “No matter how well you ride, you can’t win unless you get a real mean bull.”

Unlike the situation at some other sporting events, no one pays a cowboy to compete. Rather, he pays for the chance to enter. For many weekend bull riders, it can mean paying $25 to be beaten up by an animal that weighs 10 times as much as they do. Some riders, like Moya and Armstrong, compete in both bull and bareback horse riding, paying two entry fees for twice the bruises.

For dreamers like Rick Bradley, 25, entry fees are worth every penny--even when you’re nearly broke.

Out of necessity he travels on a low budget, hitchhiking with only his saddle and a small backpack.

“I’ve got no car, no bags, but I know I’ll make it to the next rodeo,” said Bradley, who grew up on a ranch in Preston, Ida.

The thrill of the competition and the lure of success are enough to keep him going.

“This might be my year. I sure hope it is,” Bradley said. “I’ve got my resume all made up in case some corporate sponsors start to notice me.”