How do you get started in a rodeo?

How did the sport of rodeo bull-riding get started?

• Answer:

  The beginnings of rodeo can be traced back to the ranches of the early 1700’s, when the Spanish ruled the West. The Spanish cattlemen, known as vaqueros, would influence the American cowboy with their clothing, language, traditions and equipment which would in turn influence the modern sport of rodeo. Duties on these early ranches included roping, horse breaking, riding, herding, branding, and much more. http://rodeo.about.com/od/history/a/rodeohistory1.htm As a major component of rodeo, bull riding is generally thought to have originated during 1864. Two groups of cowboys from neighbouring ranches met in Deer Trail, Colorado USA. The meeting was arranged to settle a dispute over which group was best at general ranch tasks. From this simple competition, rodeo was born. Of course, since then the sports have much evolved, the showmanship and highly competitive nature of the games have never wavered. A pivotal moment for modern bull riding, and rodeo in general came in 1936 when the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) was founded. Through this organization many hundreds of rodeos are organized and held each year. Since that time, the popularity of all aspects of the rodeo has risen, a considerable achievement for the sport came in 2002 when it earned Olympic sport status during the Salt Lake City Olympics. More recently, a separate organization has been formed for bull riding alone : The Professional Bull Riders (PBR), which also stages a large number of events. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_riding#History