We went to the PRCA rodeo last night held at the Santa Ana Star Center here in Rio Rancho where they do a lot of events like hockey and concerts as well as the rodeos. I was a bit disappointed since it was billed as being a PRCA event, meaning that it was backed by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. But to me it seemed more like an amature event than a professional rodeo. I would have been alright with it if they had billed it as an amature event but not as professional. Consider this - out of about 8 steer wrestlers only one was able to jump off of his horse and wrestle his steer down as it is supposed to be done. Another rider got his down but it took him way, way to long so no score and the others just fell off their horses beside the steer which looked back at the cowboys as if to say 'Ha Ha - you missed' and ran out of the arena. Have to admit that the other events like the bareback bronc riding, calf roping, team roping and saddle bronc riding were better but the barrel racing wasn't great as most of the girls were riding way to close to the barrels so that the barrels got knocked over. I have seen teenage kids on TV do better than most of these professional were doing. The bull riding was Ok and I was able to get better photos of that as by then I had figured out how to adjust the camera to get some half way decent shots. Of course we were sitting up in VIP seating which was kind of high up but better viewing than I expected, plus the lighting wasn't the greatest being an indoor arena. Actually I almost didn't even take my camera as I didn't expect anything to come out, but my little camera did good considering.Still it was fun especially as it was the first rodeo I had been to in about 20 years near as I can figure.
The very worse part was the anouncer was so loud that we couldn't understand what he was saying so we didn't know who the contestants were or their scores.
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For the timed events: that arena is TINY!!!! Especially for the barrel racers. On top of that, it is normally a hockey rink, and because of that the ground was very slick. The dirt wasn't quite deep enough for the powerful horses to grab onto- if you were there for multiple performances, you saw multiple horses fall completely to the ground.
ReplyDeleteSorry you feel that it was not a quality rodeo but it most certainly was. The top cowboys in the world were there, current world champions and past, Robbie hodges was the barrel man, who was the wnfr man in the can last year, some world champion stock was there.
Obviously i feel that alot of improvements could be made, as with any event, and it was not an amazing or outstanding rodeo- that's what the wnfr is for. It was a great hometown rodeo and had a great turn out.