The crowd at the Snowmass rodeo in Colorado was diverse in background but uniformly polite and enthusiastic. Photo / Tom Dillane
The crowd at the Snowmass rodeo in Colorado was diverse in background but uniformly polite and enthusiastic. Photo / Tom Dillane
The Snowmass Rodeo is the longest-running rodeo in Colorado. Taking place every summer throughout mid-August, it’s the all-American event that’s full of surprises — and civility, writes Tom Dillane
The contestants formed a muddled row across the dusty arena, two or three deep and shuffling for position, as their relatives screamed encouraging words full of obligation and pride.
Family reputations were on the line here, literally.
The clatter of anticipation rising from the bleaches indicated this event was for many the pinnacle in a day that had already had tamed animals mastered and wild ones mishandled.
Bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, barrel racing, bull riding and breakaway roping had all been a prelude.
Safety was preached over the loudspeaker, but it blared with such an arrogant cadence that it was hard to take the message seriously.
The young blonde PR lady in the felt blue fedora beside me said the PA announcer never repeats a joke, diss or witty line in all the weekly rodeos she’s chaperoned media at.
The crowd at the Snowmass Rodeo in Colorado was diverse in background, but uniformly polite and enthusiastic. Photo / Tom Dillane
He was holding court for the 2000 attendees for an unrelenting 1.5-hour event every Wednesday at 7pm for a season running June 21 to August 16.
“Now, here are the rules, in just a little bit I’m going to ask the nice people behind you to release the beasts,” the announcer explained in a loud drawl.
“There are ribbons on their tails and I’m going to ask you to bring them back to my friend Artie, okay.
The Snowmass Rodeo this year will mark its 50th anniversary. Photo / Tom Dillane
There had been a huddling to the fence line of elegant women spurring on those they loved, hooting and waving for reassurance as their other hand grasped a phone on video record.
The names of Noah and Evelyn and Elijah and Amelia and Cooper and Theodore were all shouted with gusto.
With a gunshot the animals were let loose. Their brawny heads towered over many of the contestants and their foot speed was at least twice that of the pursuers.
The field of male and female contestants numbered 50-100 and formed a swarming mass like that of a school or fish or flock of birds being guided by the instinctive sense of loose prey.
It was mayhem. Yellow tags were grasped at, adhered to the animals’ wispy tails.
Many contestants clumsily fell face first in the dirt amid the dramatic jolt of direction necessary to snare a ribbon.
They were determined and oblivious to danger, but many had not yet developed agile control of their limbs yet.
Large calves capable of genuinely hurting a grown man with a head-on collision had been let loose in a sea of youths under 10.
I laughed at the raucous joy the crowd was having at an activity in which children’s front teeth and shins could easily have been smashed with a stray hoof.
As a Southern Hemisphere outsider, it made you feel a nostalgic reassurance for a time I like to think once existed.
When fun and spectacle were a competing value to safety — not simply regulated and inferior to it.
Inner-city millennials have no real first-hand experience of it.
I grew up in the Australian state of Victoria, which was colloquially known as the Nanny State for its intense enthusiasm for over-regulating everything, down to the times of day you could turn your garden hose on. And I have seen train ticket officers tackle patrons in the street for trying to evade a $4 fare.
My adopted city of Auckland has a civic reputation no more gallant.
Overbearing safety structures clog the central streets, and road cones have become the most emblematic feature of its recent streetscape.
So to see wealthy Colorado folk — many undoubtedly multimillionaires or even billionaires — screaming at their children to grab at the tails of relatively fast-moving baby cattle, back legs thrusting at the eyeline of their pampered progeny, seemed refreshingly wild.
It was the Snowmass Rodeo, which this year will be the event’s 50th anniversary season.
I was there on July 19 last year, the fourth week of its 49th year.
There was certainly freedom in the air, and they were not shy in pointing it out. But would you want it any other way?
The Snowmass Rodeo is the longest-running rodeo in Colorado. Photo / Getty Images
While it’s obvious to observe this was an irony-free environment, the level of sincerity and patriotism was stark from a New Zealander’s (or Australian’s) perspective.
The pinnacle of Americana pride came with a blonde cowgirl atop a caramel horse galloping at pace in circles around the arena while effortlessly grasping a large American flag in one hand.
The music to this ceremony I was unfamiliar with. But I was in the vast minority here. Most of the crowd had the words down rote and were singing along.
While the location was about as far from a scraggy-white-trash rodeo as you could conjure in your imagination — with a lush green backdrop of summery Rocky Mountains peaks — it was not an exclusively gentrified Western crowd.
There was a scruffier element to a few in the stands, but it did not correspond to dishevelled behaviour.
There was no obvious resentment from the young guy in the frayed hunter’s baseball cap towards the 6ft 2in model on the arm of a sharp, spotlessly dressed rural businessman.
A genuine politeness and decency moderated the enthusiasm and fun. No wildness ventured outside of the pen.
But as the child v calf destruction derby showed, this was above all a family event.
One felt almost out of place without a toddler in your posse. And no matter how young, glamorous and carefree the woman looked, you could not tell who was a mother and who wasn’t.
It somewhat defused the stunning, yet often unnatural, beauty of many of the women … and men there. Perhaps not all you laid your eyes on there was God alone’s work, despite Lee Greenwood’s request that he bless it.
This bled into the motivations for being there.
“You can tell who’s a cowgirl for the night, and who’s actually a cowgirl,” blue fedora PR said.
There was undeniably a section of the audience attracted to the event just to be seen at the event. It was, after all, just 30 minutes down the road from (probably) the highest density of billionaires in North America in Aspen.
Summery Rocky Mountains peaks provide a lush green backdrop to the Snowmass Rodeo in Colorado. Photo / Tom Dillane
But it mingled with those attracted to the craft of horse riding and cowboy skills in and of themselves, and there was also crossover among the two camps.
But because of this, you definitely didn’t feel out of place as a media pack from New Zealand, Australia and the UK were each kindly handed a wicker hat from one of the other PR lady’s garages before entry.
We were there to see the show and to watch the people watching the show. Or at least I was.
The event scheduling and facilities were also convenient and civil. There were no huge waits for Rose and Modelo cans under the large gazebo. Athletic men in sleeveless checked shirts briskly served you ice-cold drinks.
The night winds down at the Snowmass Rodeo. Photo / Tom Dillane
Security was surely there, but you didn’t notice them and they didn’t try to make you do so. A blissfully rare occurrence.
And the whole thing was done in 90 minutes. Long enough to soak it in. Short enough to find a drink somewhere else afterwards.
It ended as the day became dusk, and lights cast a blue glimmer down on the arena to signify the activities had stopped.
The previously bustling arena now had a momentous stillness. But no one told you to leave. You could linger, maybe even into the night.
It was a slice of a world you lamented was not part of your own personal history. And for the people for who it was, you sensed it was as exciting as their first time.
You suspected they would be back next week. Until summer ended.
Checklist
COLORADO
GETTING THERE
Air NZ, Air Canada, Delta, United and American Airlines all fly from Auckland to Denver with one stopover.
DETAILS
Snowmass Rodeo is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2024. snowmassrodeo.org
Tom Dillane is an Auckland-based journalist covering local government and crime as well as sports investigations. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is deputy head of news.
