And now for a horse of a different color. We’d like to introduce you to Jane Revercomb.
Revercomb was a college student in Vernon, Texas, there on a rodeo scholarship — yes, city slickers, that’s a thing — and she saw a flyer for lady’s ranch saddle bronc riding.
You know bronc riding: think about the Wyoming license plate with the cowboy on the bucking horse, hat in the air — that’s the sport. It started out of necessity: cowboys needed to break wild horses for use on the ranch.
And even though women’s bronc riding became an official event at the rodeo of rodeos, Cheyenne Frontier Days, in 1906, the event pretty much ended after a rodeo star named Bonnie McCarroll died during her ride in 1929. Since then, ranch stock sports have been very much a man’s world — some states are even reluctant to allow women to compete at all.
Now lady’s ranch bronc riding is making its way back, slowly. In 2013, for example, only one woman was a card-carrying professional saddle bronc rider in the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association and the Canadian Pro Rodeo Association.
So leave it to reality TV to find a group of tough-as-nails rodeo women making their way up in the circuit within the Texas Bronc Riders Association. The show is called “Cowgirls” and features Revercomb and several of her peers.
In a sport where men are the ones who do the rough stock, the addition of women to the lineup hasn’t not been universally accepted. Revercomb says she takes the criticism in stride.
What on earth does riding a bucking bronco feel like? Let’s just say, it’s a little more than a runner’s high.
Beyond the thrill Revercomb gets, there’s another layer to her story. She says she found her way into the sport after two of her close friends on her college rodeo were killed in a car accident while returning from a roping event.
You can catch Revercomb on “Cowgirls” on the rodeo TV channel Ride TV.
