Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, & Bull Riders

by Josh Peter

  The Pages took special pride in the bull bred from a crippled father—and cashed in. Between PBR earnings, semen sales at $400 a shot, and selling Mossy Oak Mudslinger’s calves for up to $15,000 for a half interest, the bull had generated about $250,000—an excellent return considering Dillon Page estimated food for each bull cost $1,000 a year. And with Mossy Oak Mudslinger breeding at a healthy rate, the Pages estimated 20 to 30 percent of their bull calves ended up bucking on the BFTS. All but 5 percent of the others got sold for as much as $15,000 to stock contractors hauling bulls to smaller rodeos. But well-heeled investors weren’t interested in those smaller rodeos. It was the quest for the next Super Bull that enticed newcomers like Cody King.

  Financed by an older family friend he called “Dad,”King spent more than $500,000 buying established bulls and assembling his own pen in 2004. He hired a chiropractor and a massage therapist for one of his stars, Slim Shady, who drank Gatorade and ate vitamin supplements at his home in Rio Medina, Texas, where King raised his bulls at Paradise Farms Rodeo Genetics.

  With newcomers like King shelling out unprecedented money in search of a Super Bull, Herrington, lobbying on behalf of the other bull owners, demanded the PBR protect their investment against riders with razor-sharp spurs and bull ropes squeezed tight enough to cut off the bulls’ circulation.

  Roughly 15 minutes before the scheduled seven o’clock introductions on the first night of the Kansas City Classic, the riders were called together for a rules meeting. Bernard, Custer, and Lambert stood before them. First, announced Lambert, there was a rule clarification. In the past, a rider could enlist the help of two people to pull the slack of his bull rope and pull it himself. The more people pulling, the tighter the bull rope could be wrapped around the animal’s midsection. When three men pulled, the angry stock contractors alleged, the rope tightened to the point where bulls gasped for air—especially if the rider took too long in the chute. But from this day forward, Lambert said, if the rider pulled his rope, he counted as a third man and disqualified the ride. The rule clarification meant Moraes’s controversial ride on Hotel California would have been disqualified, because he and two Brazilians had pulled his rope. Addressing the long waits in the chutes, Lambert told the riders to start their rides as soon as possible.

  Furthermore, Lambert warned the riders about using sharp spurs. That issue had come to a head earlier in the year when Ednei Caminhas of Brazil, once suspended for 30 days for cutting a bull with his spurs, had left three gashes in King’s prize bull Slim Shady. Before the second day of competition in Kansas City, the PBR conducted an unannounced spur check. About half a dozen riders were told to file down the points on the star-shaped rowels at the ends of the spurs, and Caminhas was told to change his spurs altogether.

  The dulled rowels, required to be locked in place, are supposed to help a rider maintain his balance by giving him added grip with the feet. But the spurs are required to be so dull that they never cut the bull’s skin, which the PBR says is seven times thicker than human skin.

  In Kansas City, Moraes at first seemed unfazed by the closed-door rules meeting. He said he thought the real culprit was Caminhas. As for himself, Moraes said it’d simply be a matter of adjusting. Moraes’s calm reaction to the rule clarification and to Herrington’s fuming about his ride on Hotel California may have stemmed from the results of the past seven events.

  After the Tuff Hedeman Championship Challenge, the PBR tour bounced its way across the western half of the United States. Stop 14, Tacoma, Washington. Championship round. Mike Lee was in first and Adriano Moraes was in second, with only Justin McBride left to ride. Aboard McNasty, McBride turned in a 90.5-point ride, winning for the fourth time of the season as Lee yet again was denied his first victory of the year. Onward to Fresno, California, and stop number 15. Back from the dead came Owen Washburn, the 31-year-old former champion, who ended his season-long slump with a convincing victory. “It was getting lonely at the bottom,” he said. Eastward ho!

  Billings, Montana. Stop 16. Brian Herman, a 5-foot-3-inch Texan better known as “Pee Wee,” landed headfirst in the dirt after his ride on Peacemaker in the championship round. He was still wobbling when he realized he’d won the event with the 87-point ride. “I honestly don’t remember a thing,” he said. And whoosh, it was off to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and stop 17. Another weekend, another pint-size winner. Mike White, a 5-foot-6 rider born in Louisiana and branded “Mighty Mike,” won the event and moved into fifth place in the overall standings. Moraes had surrendered the spotlight but retained a significant points lead, thanks to a second-place finish in Albuquerque. The PBR tour ran back to its headquarters in Colorado Springs for stop 18.

  Pikes Peak served as the jaw-dropping backdrop while a Brazilian climbed to the top of the heap. Not Moraes, but Caminhas, holding on for a wild 90-point ride on Mesquite Heat and the victory. Off to Nampa, Idaho, and stop 19, and off the charts went Michael Gaffney, a onetime world champ who at 34 looked to be in the twilight of his career. He drew Little Yellow Jacket in the championship round, and he rode the baddest bull in the PBR to the 8-second buzzer. In came the score: 96.5 points! Raucous cheers rattled the Idaho Center. Gaffney had just matched the highest score in PBR history.With all the excitement, Justin McBride’s third-place finish went almost unnoticed—by everyone but Moraes. McBride pulled within 816.5 points of Moraes while moving almost 1,000 points ahead of Lee.

  Gaffney’s record-setting ride punctuated the end of the frenetic stretch, 19 consecutive weekends of BFTS events. Two-thirds of the way through the marathon, the riders could finally catch their breath—but not for long if they hoped to catch Moraes. He reasserted himself May 16 with a win in Springdale, Arkansas, his fourth victory of the year. Three weeks later he arrived in Kansas City for stop 22 of the PBR season with a 1,495-point lead over Justin McBride and a 2,325.5-point lead over Mike Lee. No other rider was within 3,000 points of the lead, and no rider could make up more than 900 points during any 2-day, regular-season event. And that would have required both an unprecedented perfect score on every bull and that Moraes fall off his bulls in the first two rounds.

  In round one at the Kansas City Classic, fans inside Kemper Arena watched Moraes climb aboard White Line Fever and deliver an 84.5-point ride. But the next day, needing only a modest score to qualify for the championship round, Moraes got bucked off Uh Oh, a bull that had been ridden three out of five times. He joined the other riders behind the chutes.

  Standing next to B. J. Kramps, Moraes watched Mike Lee ride Jack Daniels Happy Hour for 89.5 points—the highest score of the second round.“Nice ride,” Moraes said, but added he would have scored it no higher than 82 points.

  “Why?” Kramps asked. “Are you jealous he’s going to steal your fame?”

  Moraes turned red. His faced tightened.

  “Are you serious?” he shouted three times.

  The wisecracking Kramps realized he’d hit a nerve and then changed the subject. But Moraes, who’d finished out of the top 15 in the preliminary rounds, was still fuming while watching the championship round.

  Heading into that final round, Lee, who had been a portrait of consistency with 10 top-10 finishes, found himself in position to win his first event of the season. Lee and Tony Mendes, a 26-year-old from Utah, were the only two riders to have covered their first two bulls, and Lee led Mendes in the cumulative scoring by 5½ points. Mendes got bucked off, and so did nine others, in the championship round before Lee climbed into the chutes. Dave Samsel of Kansas had survived a wild ride on Western Wishes for 91 points, edging past Lee by a mere 2½ points. To win, Lee simply had to hold on for 8 seconds. But the bull was the fearsome Slim Shady.

  It ended with one last thud, Slim Shady slamming Lee to the dirt and denying him his first victory of the season. And it was worth noting that the event winner was Samsel, one of the American riders who earlier in the season had started using a Brazilian rope.

  STANDINGS

  1 Adriano Moraes 7,9
48.5 points

  2 Justin McBride 6,354 points

  3 Mike Lee 6,075.5 points

  4 Mike White 4,541.5 points

  5 Ross Coleman 4,323 points

  6 Mike Collins 4,285 points

  7 Jody Newberry 4,244 points

  8 Brendon Clark 3,998 points

  9 Greg Potter 3,437 points

  10 Brian Herman 3,326 points

  ELEVEN

  A CRY FOR HELP

  Nashville, Tennessee

  Friday & Saturday, June 25 & 26, 2004

  The insults and punches were flying. There, in the middle of the melee breaking out in the Wildhorse Saloon, were Justin McBride and J.W. Hart. It all happened so fast.

  One minute McBride, Hart, and the riders’ girlfriends had been peacefully drinking beers at the site of the PBR’s after-event party, near a strip of honky-tonks overflowing with patrons. The next minute they were in the middle of a brawl. It had started with the women—in particular a woman who had approached Hart and berated him for “doing me wrong.” Hart said they didn’t want any trouble; they just wanted to drink their beers. The woman turned to leave.

  But as she walked away, McBride’s girlfriend, Michelle Beadle, let fly with some choice words. The woman whipped around and came back for Beadle. She didn’t make it that far.

  LeAnn Stilley, Hart’s petite blond-haired girlfriend, rattled a few punches off the side of the woman’s head and all hell broke loose. Fists swinging, bouncers tackling, beer bottles crashing to the floor. Greg Crabtree, one of the PBR’s bullfighters, jumped into the melee as if trying to save the riders from Crossfire Hurricane. Hart,McBride, their girlfriends, and Crabtree got thrown out of the bar, but not before leaving their knuckle marks on a few people’s faces.

  The only guy who’d taken a worse pounding that night was rider Cory Melton. During first-round action at Bullnanza–Nashville, Happy Jack threw Melton to the dirt and knocked out the 22-year-old rider from Keithville, Louisiana. Shortly after Melton regained consciousness, he looked in the mirror and saw two chipped teeth.

  “What month is it?” asked Tandy Freeman, testing Melton’s post-concussion state.

  “It’s gotta be June or July, because I’m entered in a bunch of rodeos.”

  Pretty good, considering it was June 25 and some of the fully conscious riders probably didn’t know what month it was. Freeman gave Melton a sleeve of painkillers, while Adriano Moraes and Justin McBride were feeling the pain of disappointment.

  During the first round that night, Blondie bucked off McBride, and Moraes, taking a reride after scoring 73.5 points on Nip/Tuck, got bucked off Happy Ending. Since the rule clarification in Kansas City, it was the second time in three rides he’d failed to make the 8-second buzzer. “Oh, well,” Moraes said when he saw McBride, “we’re still number one and number two—even though we sucked.”

  McBride chuckled, and the two reminisced about McBride’s trip to Brazil 3 years before, when he and Ross Coleman joined Moraes in Barretos for the largest annual rodeo in South America. McBride recalled the five security officers who escorted Moraes at every public appearance, the portable 30-foot likeness of Moraes that stood inside the arena, and the fans who wept when Moraes arrived. “He’s like frickin’ Elvis over there,” McBride said.

  They joked and talked about taking a future vacation together before realizing they were the last two riders in the arena. Moraes had planned it that way. On nights when he got bucked off, he hated to return to his hotel room, where he knew he would sit and brood over what he’d done wrong. Conversation provided temporary escape from the reflexive self-criticism. McBride typically washed down his own disappointment with whiskey and beer. With the arena virtually empty, the two riders left, Moraes heading back to the hotel and McBride and Beadle off to the Wildhorse Saloon and what would be one wild fight.

  Night 2. Championship round. Face-plant. Pinwheel. Thud. Dirt-eating fall after dirt-eating fall. Fourteen riders climbed atop their championship-round bulls, and all 14 failed to make the buzzer.

  Then it was Owen Washburn’s turn. His equipment bag had gotten lost on the flight from his home in Nashville, forcing Washburn to borrow equipment from fellow riders. Using a bull rope that belonged to one guy, spurs that belonged to another, and someone else’s chaps and mouth guard, he rode both of his bulls in the preliminary rounds and had the cumulative lead entering the short-go. But now he had to climb atop Little Yellow Jacket.

  In their first meeting, at Portland, Oregon, in 2000, Washburn conquered the bull for an 87-point ride. But 4 years later, Little Yellow Jacket was a different bull—an eliminator. Washburn had learned as much that past April in Albuquerque, when he’d boarded the bull for the second time of his career and gotten overpowered. Now came the rubber match.

  Out of the chute, the bull whirled left. Washburn leaned low and forward, surviving the hairpin turn. But when Little Yellow Jacket turned hard again to the left, Washburn went sailing off the bull to the right.

  Bullfighters Rob Smets and Dennis Johnson darted in as Washburn scrambled to his feet, but no one was in further danger. Little Yellow Jacket struck his regal pose. Smets lazily tossed his cowboy hat at the bull, and the hat bounced off Little Yellow Jacket’s muscled flanks and fell to the dirt. Never even flinching, the bull kept its eyes straight ahead, waited for the center gate to open, and sauntered down the alley to the back pens. Washburn still earned $55,406 for the victory, but Little Yellow Jacket earned yet more respect.

  The event ended with a surprise runner-up: Allan Moraes, Adriano’s younger brother. He was competing in his first BFTS, but it was a bittersweet night for Allan because of what had happened to his older brother. Getting bucked off Flabby Flan in the second round, Adriano Moraes landed awkwardly on his left leg, buckling his knee.

  Despite the pain, Adriano Moraes was fuming, because he thought the bull had fouled him before getting out of the chute and he deserved a reride. He hobbled toward the sports medicine room, complaining about the judges—something he rarely did.

  “No more Mr. Nice Guy,” he barked.

  Waiting on an examination table, Moraes assured Tandy Freeman that he was fine. Freeman would make his own diagnosis.

  “Does this hurt?”

  “No.”

  “How about here?”

  “Ah!”

  “Does this hurt?”

  “Unh!”

  The initial diagnosis: torn cartilage. If Moraes had surgery before aggravating the injury, he could recuperate in 2 weeks. Freeman recommended surgery the next week. Moraes shook his head. He was scheduled to fly to Brazil the next night and would catch up with his wife and three sons, who were there on vacation.

  “I don’t care if I have a broken leg,” he said. “I haven’t seen my wife and kids for 15 days. I’m going home.”

  Freeman shrugged as if to say, “Do what you want.”

  The next morning Moraes was sitting in the Nashville International Airport, waiting on his early-morning flight home to Keller, Texas, when Mike Lee, who had fallen off two of his three bulls that weekend, walked over and sat down. “I know why you fell off that bull last night,” said Moraes, ever the teacher—or, in the eyes of some, ever the know-it-all. They talked about the ride before Lee changed the topic of conversation, bringing up the predominant culture of the PBR—the beer-drinking, bed-hopping lifestyle he so despised.

  That weekend, Lee told Moraes, he’d shared a hotel room with two riders who had gone on the road without their Bibles—assuming they had Bibles at all. After the first night of riding, the riders brought buckle bunnies to the room. Before Lee knew it, the women were half-naked. Instead of leaving the room, Lee found himself staring at the women’s exposed breasts and succumbing to lustful thoughts.

  “I’m weak,” Lee said. “I’m weak.”

  He had brown hair short enough on the sides to reveal his scar, but a little long on top. He rarely looked others in the eyes, with his own eyes often looking down at the ground. And his solid
build contrasted with the weakness in the face of lust that Lee so lamented.

  Outside a handful of devout Christians, he rarely talked to other riders. He protected his privacy the way a mother grizzly protects her young. And he used the Bible like some might use a road map and thought veering off course brought a man another step closer to hell.

  After every ride, Lee dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and then raised his helmet heavenward. But it was his choice of celebrations after successful rides that prompted fellow riders to roll their eyes. Lee did a twirling pirouette, which he occasionally topped off by dropping into a split or gyrating his hips. Yet as soon as he left the arena dirt, he reverted to the PBR’s most enigmatic recluse, often walking past fellow riders as if he’d never met them—or as if they didn’t even exist.

  Lee had played running back and fullback on the high school football team through the first half of his freshman year but started experiencing pain in his knees. Worried about how a knee injury might affect Mike’s bull riding career, his father pulled him off the football team. And when Dennis Lee heard people were giving his son a hard time about leaving the team, he pulled his son out of school.

  For the next 3½ years, under the vigil of his father, Mike Lee was homeschooled and focused on his riding career.

  Years earlier, Dennis Lee had traded a lawn mower for a bucking machine, and Mike rode it so much, it was a wonder the bolts and screws hadn’t fallen out. But he learned the finer points at the side of his father by riding the colts and broncos his father broke as a professional horse trainer.

  Feel, read, and react, Dennis Lee told his son again and again.

  “You have to rely on your heart and your spirit so you can feel the bull’s spirit, vibration, and energy,” Dennis Lee told him.

  Mike, the youngest of three siblings, absorbed his father’s every word. As instructed, he practiced his breathing, inhaling as the bull went up and exhaling as it came down. He practiced using the muscles of his stomach, hips, legs, and shoulders—the same muscles used to break a horse. He practiced positive visualization.