Cowgirl Up! (24 page)

But she found inspiration in a song, “Saddle Bronc Girl,” that Canadian country music singer Ian Tyson wrote about her: “Hey, Kaila, what ya gotta do, how far ya gotta go to make a dream come true. . . .”

The song was just the encouragement she needed during this low time in her life. “It helped me put everything in perspective—more toward having fun and enjoying the riding like I used to.”

The focus has shifted from the first reaction of “Oh, my gosh, it's a girl” to “Oh, yes, this girl can ride!” As she gained respect for her skills, her thinking became more positive. Kaila is a big believer in a positive mental attitude, and she posts almost daily on Facebook quotes such as:

Fear interferes with success. Success really is not success. Success is a process. To forget the journey is to lose focus of living. Believing in oneself, in your own strength, is confidence. Forgetting is disheartening, depressing, darkness.

Kaila, who sports a multicolored Mohawk, tattoos, and piercings, realizes she has broken new ground on the circuit. “It recently hit me that I am a role model for all people, proving that anything is possible if you set your mind to something and have the drive to carry it through. I'm not a gimmick. I'm a competitor, and I will be around for a long time.”

Why does she compete in this rough, dangerous sport? Her answer: “Challenge, adrenaline rush, danger, love of the sport—the feeling of being in sync with a bucking horse.” Kaila describes the feeling of being on the back of a thrashing, sunfishing bronc that only wants to shed its unwelcome burden as “thrilling, powerful, connected, reactive, instinctive.” And danger is “anything that will get your heart racing and seems scary.”

Kaila has had her challenges as well as her successes. As a self-described perfectionist, she is disappointed in herself when she doesn't ride up to her expectations. Being broke, drawing poor buckers, and being injured also get her down. But when she's overcome her obstacles and made a successful ride, she feels “happy, excited, successful, energetic, positive, confident, empowered.”

When asked if bronc riding was a career, she said no. “It definitely doesn't pay my bills. I'd call it a passion, an expensive hobby.”

What keeps her going is the support she receives from family, friends, and fans, and the fact that she's invested a lot of time and energy in her sport and loves what she does. “Looking at the bigger picture, my goals, why I do what I do.”

Kaila still has her dreams: “I would like to qualify for the CFR [Canadian Finals Rodeo], and I would love to be the first woman to qualify for the NFR [National Finals Rodeo], although I don't know if it's within reason now because I'm looking at the financial side of it.

“I don't really plan far in advance—I could die tomorrow—but eventually it will come the time when I feel ‘I'm done with this.' It could be two years or ten. But it'll be when I'm satisfied inside.”

And if she wasn't a bronc-riding cowgirl, she says she would probably be a professional snowboarder or surfer or downhill bike racer or motocross—“anything to keep up with the adrenaline rush.”

Kaila hopes she will have left her mark on the rodeo world and paved the way for other women.

“I may not be the best saddle-bronc rider in the PRCA, and I may not always make winning rides . . . but I am always out there trying, and showing the world that there are unlimited possibilities for women.”

Her advice to girls is “to be there because you love the sport and are serious about it. You have to realize what you're undertaking. No one should just jump in and say, ‘I want to do that because it's cool.'

“Always be true to yourself. Only you know what you want and what works for you. This is your life, make the most of it!” Kaila adds. “I will not tiptoe through life only to arrive safely at death.”

Jonnie Jonckowski has met Kaila and says of her: “What a hand she is! I just wish women had their own venue that could really show off their talents. I still don't like women competing with the men, but in this day and age, where else do they go?”

Kaila decided to concentrate her efforts in the semi-pro rodeos and ended the 2013 season second in the British Columbia Rodeo Association (BCRA) and Pro-West Rodeo Association and also came in second at the Ranch Bronc Riding Rodeo in Chelan, Washington.

“Yes, I had been hoping to finish the season off first, but I gave it my best,” she said. “It doesn't always go the way a person hopes, but I got pretty close. Apparently second is the theme for me right now. Overall, the season was great and I had a lot of fun. I even had the most wins for a season of my career! Obviously, coming from my perfectionist mentality, I could always do better, but when I look back in perspective, things really were pretty good.”

Since Kaila Mussell opened the gate for women in the PRCA, another young woman, twenty-one-year-old Maggie Parker, has been working to fill her professional card as a bull rider.

Riders over age eighteen who want to apply for membership in the PRCA must first obtain a permit card and then earn at least one thousand dollars at PRCA-sanctioned rodeos during a year. If the permit holder is unable to win the required amount, he or she must repurchase a permit the following year and start over again.

In June 2012 Maggie became the first female bull rider in PRCA history to win prize money. She rode eight seconds, came in sixth, and won $430.

Maggie got her start in a small town of four hundred in Michigan, when a family friend who once rode bulls took her to a rodeo. “I chose bull riding because it looked like fun,” she said. “The adrenaline rush is addicting, and the lifestyle is fun.”

She started riding at age sixteen, driving two hours to the nearest corral to practice. At seventeen she moved away from home to work in stockyards and on ranches in Oklahoma and Texas to pay for training.

Maggie trains with top bull-riding mentor Gary Leffew in California, who has coached twelve world champions. “She wasn't very good when she came to me, but she had grit. That's what I admire about her. She ain't got no quit in her—she's determined and she works long and hard on it.” Her percentage of staying on is 35 to 40 percent, which Leffew says is a normal average for professional riders.

Despite her successes as a woman in a male sport, she still faces an uphill battle in being accepted, especially when she gets bucked off. “What the hell is a woman doing in bull riding?” the men ask incredulously. “This is why girls shouldn't ride bulls; girls aren't made for this.”

“They think I do it for a lot of the wrong reasons,” Maggie said. “Most people don't like me before they meet me just because they think I do it for attention and for guys and to be in the spotlight and that I don't really care about it.”

Maggie is undaunted. “I'm friends with a lot of the guys, but I still hear criticism and comments every day. It's not as bad as when I first started riding. I just keep a good positive attitude and keep pushing toward my dreams.”

All riders face what is called “the most dangerous eight seconds” in sports. But Maggie—who is five feet, five inches tall and 130 pounds—is determined not to be bested by her one-ton opponent. She said:

Bull riding is one of the most dangerous sports because you're up against an animal and you don't know what he is going to do or what he's thinking. You really have to respect them. You can't ride against them, you have to ride with them.

Sometimes it's been harder for me because when you're learning how to ride a bull you're going to get bucked off—and you're going to get hurt. It's just not going to look very pretty while you're riding. It all depends on the person. You're either a good bull rider or you're not. It takes a long time to gain people's respect and get treated the same as the men.

Everybody gets nervous. When you see your bull coming down the chute, your heart starts pumping hard and you get that adrenaline. That's what makes bull riders different from everyone else . . . we have that heart to overcome that fear and to get on anyways.

City folks think it's crazy, but it's just a way different lifestyle than they're used to. I think sitting in an office all day is crazy. I'd much rather work eight seconds and get to travel the country and have freedom and meet people than [work] eight hours in the same office.

Maggie's goal is to get her PRCA card. “Long term, my goal is to make the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.”

Rodeo for women has come full circle.

“Pain is not too great a price to pay for the freedom of the saddle and a horse between the legs.”

—F
ANNIE
S
PERRY
S
TEELE

A
s the country song says, “Cowgirls don't cry.” Even when they're bucked off a nearly half-ton of angry muscle and bone—a wild steer, a bull, or a bronc. These intrepid cowgirls rode with injuries—taped ribs, casts, bruises—just like their male counterparts.

• Ruth Roach, winner of the 1919 Women's Saddle Bronc contest at the Cheyenne Frontier Days, had her left leg crushed at Madison Square Garden in 1933. A year later she was again thrown from her horse and broke her wrist.
  
• Alice Greenough crushed her ankle at El Paso and was on crutches for two years. At Madrid, Spain, she was thrown and was in a coma for four days. Later in Australia she received injuries to both knees when a horse fell on her.
  
• Bonnie McCarroll, winner of the 1922 Frontier Days Ladies' Saddle Bronc contest, was killed at Pendleton in 1929 while riding “hobbled.” When thrown, she became caught up in her gear and was dragged to death.
  
• Fox Hastings of Texas, who began rodeoing in about 1916, was once thrown from her horse, and then it fell on her—twice. Her neck appeared to witnesses so twisted they feared it was broken. She was carried from the arena. But about fifteen minutes later, she rode back to the judges' stand in an open car and asked for a re-ride. She got it, rode to the end, and dismounted on her own. Only when out of sight of the crowd did she collapse.
  
• Tad Lucas was one of the most famous trick riders. At the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, when going under her horse's belly, Tad slipped. She hung there, her horse kicking her with every step as he kept galloping around the arena. Finally she was able to roll free, ending up with a badly broken arm. At first the doctors wanted to amputate. She said, “Absolutely not.” They told her she'd never ride again. Within a year she proved them wrong, riding with her arm in a cast.
  
• Marie Gibson went to London with Tex Austin's troupe in 1924. The first week out, she dislocated her knee, had it wrapped, and came back later for trick riding. But when she stepped off the horse, she felt it go again. The doctor reset it and told Marie to lay off. She did—for two days—then rode again. Marie had to have help saddling and mounting and had to be carried from the stadium, but she kept coming back.
  

Jonnie Jonckowski says, “I'm pieces and parts. I have scars in more places than most people have skin. It's pretty bad when you know your anesthesiologist by his first name.” In addition to the reconstructive surgery on her face after her student bull ride, the leg-threatening injury at her first championship win, and a spiral fracture in her right arm, her worst injury happened on a pleasure ride one evening. Her horse suddenly reared up, bashing Jonnie's brow bone. As she fell to the ground, the horse crashed down on her, snapping ribs and bones. Jonnie lay in the field praying for her life.

“I knew this was the wreck that kills people,” she said. But she recovered, wondering “what God has here for me to do. It must be huge.”

Then in 2000, doctors discovered a fast-moving tumor in her brain. “I was about two weeks from being blind and six months from being dead.” Jonnie underwent surgery and “lost the left jaw, upper jaw, all of my teeth, my palette, the rim of my eye and my cheekbone.” Many procedures later, using bone from her hip to rebuild her face, people can't tell the trauma she's had.