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Professional bull riding comes to the Patriot Center this weekend, and Weekender talks with cowboy legend Don Gay about the wildest sport of all

Date published: 1/24/2008

Bull riding is a fascinating, some say crazy, sport--one that has grown in popularity, including increasing coverage of events on TV. Weekender was lucky enough to speak with riding legend Don Gay--a cowboy and all-around nice guy, who also happens to be eight-time world champion bull rider. Editor Dave Smalley conducted the interview by phone with Gay. It has been edited for length.

W: Just how does someone get into the sport of sitting on a ton of snorting, pawing, horned animal?

Don Gay: These bulls will average about 1,500, 1,600 pounds--a little short of a ton. Now, there are some that are a ton, but a 1-ton bull would be like an offensive tackle--while a 1,500-pound bull would be like a wide receiver or running back, a lot more athletic.

And those are the bulls that are actually bred to buck. So it makes for pretty good watching. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're gonna buck, but it means if they want to, they can do it much easier than a bull that doesn't have a real good body conformation--in other words, somebody that's not in real good shape.

So that's how the bulls are. The cowboys? You know, probably back in the '40s, '50s, '60s, even into the '70s, most everybody had a little bit of a Western kind of a background. And by that I mean they at least had some friends that had five or six acres and a horse or two, so they could ride a horse and kind of be around a Western-type environment.

Nowadays that's harder to find. There's a lot more people, with the bull riding event being featured on television quite a lot. You're having a lot of guys that are young, in their late teens, early 20s, and they're thinking, "You know what? I could do that."

There are riding schools. They're usually three-day clinics that would teach you some basic fundamentals on a barrel--mechanical bull, that sort of thing--to give you an idea of what's gonna happen. And then, the only way to learn how to ride is to actually get on--and therein is the most dangerous part of it.

What: PBR Fairfax Invitational Where: George Mason University Patriot Center, 4500 Patriot Circle, Fairfax When: Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Cost: $65, $40, $30 and $20 (plus applicable service charges). Kids Supervalue tickets are $15. Tickets on sale through all Ticketmaster outlets including the Patriot Center box office and ticketmaster.com, or via Phonecharge at 703/573-SEAT, 202/397-SEAT or 410/547-SEAT. Info: patriotcenter.com

Date published: 1/24/2008