A Range of Emotions

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA — Sporting his mutton-busting champion T-shirt from last year, 6-year-old Kollin Hill spun the wheel of his spur Saturday as he prepared for the 7th annual Fiesta Days & Rodeo.

“It’s not hard,” the Portola Hills boy said of the sheep he was about to ride.

The pint-sized cowboy explained how he began practicing for the sheep-riding event when he was 5.

“My dad used to have a dog, and I would ride on its back,” he said through the gap of his missing two front teeth. “It was a German shepherd.”

About 300 spectators, several wearing cowboy hats and Wrangler jeans with creases running down the middle, gathered to watch what many called the most nostalgic American sport, while outside the gates a dozen animal rights activists protested, holding a 9-foot banner that read, “Rodeos hurt animals.”

But inside the fair, fans sucked down beers and reflected about the courage of the cowboys and the pain the riders endure, not the animals.

“A lot of people think calf-roping is mean,” said cowgirl Sandy Kestermont. “It’s not. More cowboys get hurt than these calves.”

The gate lifted and a calf raced out of the pen as a cowboy on horseback chased after it. In 11.7 seconds, the cowboy flung a lasso around the calf’s neck, jumped off his horse, wrestled the calf to the ground and bound its front and back legs together as the horse pulled the rope taut.

“He got him! He got him, Daddy!” 4-year-old Samantha MacFall screamed from on top of her father’s shoulders.

“I’m an animal lover, and I think it’d be different if we were at a bullfight,” said Pamela Kelterer, Samantha’s aunt. “It’s no different than a football player getting beat up on. They’re used to it.”

As the gate lifted and another calf ran into the ring, Kelterer’s 2-year-old daughter, Jordan, turned from the ring and buried her face in her mother’s chest.

“I’m scared,” she said as she hugged her mom. “Where are the clowns?”

Barry “Boom-Boom” Johnson of North Platte, Neb., climbed into a rubber barrel in the middle of the ring, preparing for the bull riding.

“A little bit of thrill never hurt anybody,” the 46-year-old clown said. “I was married for 11 years. I’m not scared of a bull.”

But there were a couple of injuries Saturday. Ken Stillman broke his right ankle when he fell off during the bull-riding competition. And when bull Humpty Dumpty began to spin to the right and rider Tracy Lombardi lost his footing, he flew up and over Dumpty’s head, getting trampled by the 2,000-pound beast.

“It feels like someone took a sledge hammer and gave me the worst charley horse ever,” the Denver cowboy said, stripped of his chaps and sitting in his blue paisley boxer shorts with ice resting on the his propped up leg. “It’s our pain, not the animals’.”

He said Saturday’s injury was minor compared with the time a bull gored him in the side and broke his jaw, knocking out four teeth on the right side of his mouth.

“Everybody gets in a car wreck,” he said, with tobacco chew speckling his half-toothed smile. “It’s the same way with bulls. It’s bound to happen.”

Cowgirl Kestermont began riding in rodeos last month after quitting her job at a Yuba City western store to hit the road with a camper and her boyfriend, who is a rodeo judge.

“It’s a lot of fun,” she said. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

She said she would like to begin riding in the women’s barrel racing, however, rather than competing in the rodeo’s male-dominated events.

“You don’t see many women doing this,” she said. “I don’t see why women would want to get on bucking horses. I’m perfectly happy riding.”

Kathy Moon, 12, is already practicing to break that barrier. She will compete today in the calf-riding competition and hopes to one day ride a bull.

“It’s just a good way to build our confidence,” she said of the event. “Thinking about getting stepped on is the only scary part.”

Cheryl Moon, her mother, said she was not worried about her 85-pound daughter riding a 600-pound calf.

“She’s got lots of guts,” she said, her yellow-striped blouse tied in a knot and horseshoe earrings dangling from her ears. “It’s more exciting than football.”

Meanwhile, 6-year-old Kollin managed to stay on his running sheep for three seconds before it rolled over. That was long enough to win his second championship.