Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses

This is the post you've been waiting for; the rodeo and the best $11 I ever spent.

Discovering the National Western Stock Show was on in Denver was a stroke of luck, rumours that we went specifically over that time are unfounded. Normally when we're skiing, we don't really do anything of an evening, but when you find out the rodeo is in town you've got to go. According to their (no doubt reliable) Wikipedia entry, the National Western Stock Show is the Superbowl of livestock shows. I've never even been to the Balmoral show so that was less interesting to me, but with the Stock Show you get all sorts of bonus events.

The arena was massive, and bearing in mind this was a Wednesday night, it's pretty impressive was it was nearly full. The event started with a heart wrenching version of 'The Star Spangled Banner' and I felt like I was about to get thrown out as not only did I not sing, I didn't have my hand on my heart. I barely got away with it. Then there was a few minutes of ra ra Amer-i-ca stuff, you know how great America is, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, that kind of thing. Seriously, I was proud to be American after that. I was gutted when I came back down to earth and I realised I'm not.

We were in the minority by not wearing cowboy hats.

Then the events got underway. Unfortunately for us we were seated at the farthest end from the riding events. Doubley unfortunate was the fact that I forgot my camera and all I had was my phone.

The names of the events didn't mean much to me before we went. Well, I can imagine what bareback riding is, but steer wrestling? And team roping? No clue.

I imagine you are much the same way, so let me explain with the help of You Tube. (Please don't feel obliged to watch the full thing. Or you know, any of it.)

Bareback riding - riding a horse bareback. Ok, so it's more complicated than that I imagine. But that's the guts of it.

Saddle bronc riding - riding with saddle. Duh.

Bull riding - riding a bull. Was that not already clear?

Tie down roping - throwing a lasso around a calf, getting off your horse and running to it to tie up its feet. The quicker you do it, the better you are.

Steer wrestling - riding a horse alongside a calf, putting your arm around the 'steer', meanwhile dismounting and wrestling it to the ground.

You can just about see the guy is just about off his horse and with one hand on the calf.

Mutton bustin' - possibily my favourite of all the rodeo events. Five to seven year old children, yes children cling on to the back of a sheep while it charges down the arena.

Seriously check out that kid being thrown from the sheep. What parents would let their children do that? Yes, probably cowboys, but still.

Team roping - Two cowboys and one calf. While one lassos his head, the other his back legs. Incredibly quickly.

You can see the calf with only three legs. That's because the cowboy on the brown horse has its other foot in his lasso. Unfortunately though, the flag is up so it doesn't count. I think you need to get both back feet.

More team roping. Again, notice the red flag. This team left their are too soon. Shame.

Barrel racing - the only women's event where they ride on horses around barrels for the quickest time.

In between two of the events there was a horse riding group that did all sorts of crazy things on horses. I hope you can see this ok. If not you can hear our reactions to one of the stunts.

There wasn't one event which wasn't on the good side of crazy. Seriously, you could get really hurt doing some of these things. We saw officials and referees hanging to the side of the arena as whatever animal came too close. One guy did get hurt when he fell from his horse. He was fine, but this did give my favourite image of the night. When they called for the medics and doctors to help him as he lay in the middle of the arena, four guys in cowboy hats ran towards him, because at the rodeo, even the doctors wear cowboy hats! Told you we were in the minority.

At the end of the night we were encouraged to wait for 'a thought', which was about as Christian as you could imagine without actually mentioning Jesus. During it there was a big box in the middle of the arena and our 'thought' culminated with a real live pony coming out of it! Which in fairness is not something I remember Jesus doing, but still, it was something that ministers doing children's talks would have been proud of.

All in it really was the best $11 you could hope to spend.