Tipping the cowboy hat to its Wild West roots

The country-and-western tunes were spliced between the R&B; and hip-hop songs as African-American cowboys and cowgirls wearing hats and horseshoe-sized belt buckles took turns ropin’, ridin’, and bulldoggin’ during the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo Saturday and Sunday at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank.

“It was an opportunity for me to see my culture mixed with the horses doing those Western-type things,” said Tamara Pickering, of Burbank. She saw her first rodeo at the 2005 Pickett event.

“We were part of the West but you never see that so I feel like we’re finally getting represented.”

Despite temperatures that reached 100 degrees, more than 1,200 fans showed up for Saturday afternoon’s show. Organizers expected more than 10,000 for the three shows over the weekend.

The rodeo featured barrel racing, ribbon picking, calf roping, bulldogging and the usual main event of bull riding.

But one of the most popular events featured about 50 children who volunteered to try and pull a ribbon off the tail of a calf. While the children enthusiastically chased the calf around the dirt-covered arena, the calf seemed more interested in getting to the safety of a pen.

Budding African-American country singing star Miko Marks bounded around the oval performing two songs from her CD titled “Freeway Bound.”

Rodeo founder Lu Vason, a tall man with a huge white cowboy hat and a broad smile, has been bringing the show to Burbank for 20 of its 23 years.

He named the rodeo in honor of African-American cowboy Bill Pickett who invented bulldogging, aka steer wrestling, in the late 1800s and performed in cowboy events into the 1930s.

While rodeo events are based on skills cowboys used to do their work, Pickett used an unusual technique to tackle a bull and make himself a legend, Vason said.

“He had a special biting style. He bit the steer’s lip,” Vason said. “It paralyzed the steer and allowed him to throw the bull.”

Years after his death, Pickett was the first African American to be enshrined at the Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in 1971.

“I wanted to eliminate the myth that there were no black cowboys and most people don’t believe it,” Vason said. “There were many black cowboys and they were good cowboys. I think this [rodeo] is a cultural and historic event.”

Glendale resident Bob Bennett used to volunteer penning steers at the center and was happy to see so many children at the rodeo.

“There’s nothing better than a kid to have a horse and take care of it and feed it and ride it,” Bennett said.

“It makes a kid responsible.”

The center usually hosts English-style events so the rodeo is a nice change of pace, he said.

“I think it’s very important and we should have more Western events here,” he said.gnp-rodeo.2.17-BPhotoInfoUS1T0HVG20060717j2j6s0ncCredit: Caption: (LA)Riders compete in the relay race group event at the 2006 Bill Picket Invitational Rodeo hosted at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank on Saturday and Sunday. Four riders exchange a baton with the fastest group winning the category. gnp-rodeo.1.17-BPhotoInfoUS1T0HV320060717j2j6hnncCredit: Photos by TAMMY ABBOTT News-Press and Leader Caption: (LA)Shunn Blanks wrestles a steer in the bulldogging event at the 2006 Bill Picket Invitational Rodeo hosted at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank on Saturday and Sunday. The yearly rodeo honors African-American cowboys.