Well I havn't seen this sport on here yet. A little background, we live in the Midwest and raise livestock. Neighbor is a legitimate cowboy, works cattle from horseback. Oldest son admired him.
He walked out of basketball practice one day in 6th grade and saw a picture of a younger kid on the school bulletin board riding a calf (yes as in rodeo bull riding). He looked at me and said "I want to do that"......A couple of weeks later I asked if he was serious and he said yes so I took him to a bull riding school, he won top student for his age group, and got his first scar
He competed from 6th grade thru high school in local rodeos and in state associations, along the way he learned to rope and even trained his own horse at calf roping and team roping. He made it to the national junior high finals in goat tying his 8th grade year. We traveled all over the state on weekends as a family usually. It was good family time. Built an arena for him to practice in. Spent a lot of evenings down there with him, his little brother would push the steers and calves for him.
He fractured his left elbow steer riding one time and was back out a week later practicing roping. He spent a week in the hospital after being stepped on by a bull (bruised liver, broken ribs, punctured lung) had to sit out the rest of the season. Came back the first rodeo of the next year and won the bull riding competition.
He liked rodeo because as he put it "If I lose it's my own fault".
He gave up bull riding his senior year in high school to eliminate the possibility of injury and losing his scholarship.
He played basketball and ran cross country but found baseball to be to boring, go figure.
Every year my neighbor holds a big roping to work his cattle and my son tries to be back home to go out and rope with him.