J.R.'s Rodeo: The riders, clowns, and Burke Rescue

The grass still soaked the shoes of the crowd with fresh rainwater as the first horse burst from the gates at J.R.’s Rodeo last Friday night, clumps of mud flying from its hooves and the rider waving an American flag steeped in the setting sun.

Shortly after the national anthem and a brief prayer rang through the Burke County Fairgrounds, the bucking horses, or broncos, came out kicking.

Riders held fast to their ropes, gritting their teeth as they worked to sync rhythms with their equestrian counterparts.

THE RIDER-FIGHTER

Twenty-one-year-old Jarod Torrence has ridden for years, starting as a roper and bullfighter well before his first bronc ride.

His grandpa rodeoed all his life, and Torrence decided it was his turn to compete when some buddies said they didn’t think he had it in him.

On the weekend of July 10, Torrence placed third in bronc riding during both nights of the rodeo.

“Starting out as a bull fighter helped me with bull riding,” Torrence said. “I get to watch different people ride. Everybody has their own technique and different ways of how they’re gonna go about it. … I get to put in perspective what feels right and what looks right.”

Like bull riding, bronc riders attempt to stay on the animal for 8 seconds and are only allowed one hand on the rein. Their scores rely on the timing, technique, and control of the rider.

The bronco, like the bull, contributes to the score as well, based on its power and bucking tenacity. Some horses aggressively writhed under riders, a few kicked lazily, one hopped straight into the air — each earning cheers, whistles, and laughs from the crowd.

As wranglers flanked the broncos, the rider flopped across the back of the wranglers’ horses before sliding off and onto his feet. The horses usually jaunted around the fencing, grunting and still bucking wide-eyed until they disappeared behind an open gate, which swiftly shut behind them.

In another section of the arena, rodeo entertainer Matt Benfield, hard to miss in bright face paint and a black-and-electric-blue outfit, cracked jokes about the night, the riders, politics, and his mother-in-law.

“I found my mother-in-law’s belt,” he shouted to the crowd, holding up a girdle — a strap long enough to wrap around the horse’s body. When the emcee of the event laughed and explained what it was, Benfield said, “Oh, it was too small anyway.”

THE ENTERTAINER

Benfield, much like Torrence, spent many of the past 20 years in the ring, fighting bulls and riding. Now, he takes it a bit easier as the rodeo entertainer, commonly known as the rodeo clown.

“I do everything you could probably think of in the rodeo world,” Benfield said. “It just so happens that I’m funny — or at least I think I am. (My girlfriend) doesn’t think I am sometimes, but a lot of other people do.”

Unlike the traditional rodeo clown slathered in face paint and tying balloons, Benfield tries to keep the crowd engaged in between rides and events with games and straightforward entertainment — like a version of musical chairs using pink five-gallon buckets and audience participants.

“I would rather involve the crowd,” Benfield said. “Nobody’s gonna remember the big boom act, but they will remember a bunch of women out there fighting over buckets to win a free T-shirt, for some reason.”

“The last thing I want people to walk out and say is, ‘That was horrible.’ … I want people to leave that place smiling, and (hope) they’ve had the best time and don’t mind spending their hard-earned money to come have a good time at the rodeo.”

One of the toughest roles, as the entertainer, includes keeping the crowd energetic and off their phones, especially after there’s an injury.

THE EMERGENCY CREW

Wes Taylor with Burke Rescue Squad said the rodeos introduce a different level of emergency response.

“It’s not like your traditional pull the ambulance up to the front door and wheel the stretcher in to somebody,” Taylor said, explaining that they have to work around dangerous animals, safety gear, and riders that might not be interested in an ambulance ride.

“It’s pretty amazing to see some of these guys literally get stomped on by a bull and then hop up like nothing happened,” he continued. “It really says something about the safety gear and the toughness of these cowboys that are doing these rodeos.”

Among the injuries last weekend, Torrence took one of the heaviest hits. While distracting a bull following another rider’s stint on the animal, he got hooked by the horn and spent the rest of the evening limping.

“That’s my job, to get out there and protect the bull riders,” he said. “He ended up getting the best of me and throwing me in the chute. But once they knock you down, you gotta get back up. That’s your job.”