KEY POINTS:
Clarry Church rarely removes his hat. He wears it to the supermarket. He wears it to the pub. He wears it with pride.
Church is the second-born son of rodeo legend Merv Church and part of a cowboy and cowgirl dynasty that had four generations competing at the national competition in Taranaki yesterday. His vernacular is a mash-up of American Western and heartland Maori. He uses words like "darlin" and "young un" and talks about people "kicking it" with other folk. He kicks it with rangatahi in his day job as a tutor of farm cadets in a Te Arawa trust programme. And everything you ask of him is "sweet as".
Unless it's to quit the rodeo.
"The only way you can get me out of it is to drain my blood," he says.
Clarry Church says he's 100 per cent Kiwi cowboy, and that's nothing to apologise for.
Yet in the eyes of some, Church is an animal-botherer; the proponent of a sickening, macho, quasi-bloodsport that harasses horses, bulls and steers into violating their natures for big bucks and cheap thrills.
Church presents as the gentleman-cowboy: amiable, hat-doffing courteous, down-home decent. If he resembles a cowboy stereotype it's that of the one-liner-ready joker spliced with the introspective mid-distance gazer.
He says being a cowboy is more than the hat, shirt and denim jeans, though they're compulsory. "You can't be half a cowboy. You gotta eat it, breathe it, live it, otherwise you can't be a champion. It's inside, you gotta feel it from the heart."
Being a cowboy carries clout. "Rodeo isn't tiddlywinks. You can get out of a lot of sticky situations by people knowing you do rodeo."
And it has its own code of conduct - which, Church stresses repeatedly, abhors animal mistreatment. "You can't go ripping people off, or being cruel to animals, because in rodeo, what goes around comes around, and it comes around pretty hard. Do a random act of kindness every day and your arse is covered," he laughs.
Yesterday, Church had a scratch at wrenching the all-round champion title from reigning champ Jonny Ward at the nationals. He competed in four events: steer-wrestling, rope and tie, team rope, and saddle bronc.
His odds were good: he led the points table from this summer's series of 36 regional tournaments around the country, pocketing almost $13,000. And he'd held the No 1 spot once before, in 2004.
Once in the dusty arena, Church doesn't notice the crowd's roar. Only his steed's snorting. The sweat trickling down his face. A trance-like focus as he makes his body a continuation of the horse. And the adrenalin rush that soaks and quickens everything.
"It's just a hell of a feeling riding a bucking horse. Some people jump out of a plane, I say bugger that. And then you get a taste of winning and you want to win all the time."
EVERYONE ON the rodeo circuit knew it wasn't just Clarry Church competing. It was Clarry Church, son of Merv, brother of Dion, Daryl, Cory, Christine and barrel racing champion Stevie, and cousin of assorted other rodeo-ace Churches, all hailing from around Rotorua and Turangi.
Merv and eldest son Dion have each held the all-round champion title 15 times; between them they've won 55 event titles. Rodeo dummies, like saw-horses with iron horns at one end for roping practice, stand near the barbecue in the backyard of the parental farmhouse, on the 5500ha sheep and beef farm Merv manages for a Maori trust.
Clarry: "Townies would pick up a Playstation, we'd pick up a rope." Church first competed against his dad at age 14 in bull-riding and bronc riding. "Dad, he's a bit of a gun. I've tried to step in his footsteps. Pretty hard, but 'have a go', I guess."
Rodeo has changed since the pioneering days of his father's youth. "They were hard men, they had to ride on grass arenas, they ran the stock off the hills."
Now the arena has to be loose dirt and even, and the stock are especially bred and handled for rodeo.
Church lives with wife Cindy and their daughters Sheyenne, 10, and Evony, eight, in a farmhouse with panoramic views of the Rotorua lakes. Sheyenne's already competing in the junior barrel race.
Theirs is a a dangerous sport, occasionally lethal. Last November, rodeo champion Greg Meech, 33, died after being stomped on by a bull during an event in Queensland.
New Zealand has had no fatalities. But Church once watched a man get his foot caught in stirrups after being bucked from his horse.
"He got hung up and his head got kicked. The top of his head was half-open. He's nearly a vegetable now."
Church has had only minor injuries. Once he executed a mid-air somersault when hurled off a horse. "It would have been a 10 at the Olympics."
Risk is part of the deal, he says.
Bucking horses have their own tricks says Church. "Some will turn really fast, some will run you up along a post. Some, when you go to put up the halter they'll grab it with their mouth, shake it and spit it out."
When he mentions horses, Church refers to the importance of horsemanship and his respect for the "unsung heroes" of rodeo.
"Up to 98 per cent of the deal is down to the horse... I was taught from my Dad if your horse is feeling good and looks good, you're going to do good."
And yet, the SPCA has a long-running a campaign to ban rodeo, saying its manipulation of horses and cattle amounts to animal abuse. In 2002, the Kaitaia Rodeo Association was fined $10,000 for the wilful neglect of a mare, after prosecution by the Bay of Islands SPCA.
This year, former rodeo organiser Murray Darroch told a newspaper an "occasional" electrical prod was used to get a horse out of the chute.
"What's worse - standing there and flogging a horse or giving it a quick prod to get it moving?" Darroch said.
Another practice that galls animal activists is the use of a flank strap or rope, that is tied tightly around a horse or bull's sensitive lower back and flanks to stimulate bucking.
Church waves this aside. "It's just like grabbing a girl around here" - he wraps his arms around his rib cage - "they're ticklish.
"A lot of the horses that we use are horses people can't handle because they just love bucking, because that's their natural God-given right."
