Adrenaline Junkies

Local Couple Plans Bronco Battle At Lone Star Rodeo

Eight seconds isn’t a lot of time. Get in your car and maybe rev up the engine. Pause the game and grab another drink. But when you settle yourself onto 1,200 pounds of horse that lives to get rid of you, eight seconds can feel like a lifetime.

And when the Lone Star Rodeo hits the chutes at the Virginia Horse Center Friday and Saturday nights, Feb. 21 and 22, two local saddle bronc riders are planning to try their own 8 seconds of skill and luck. Sadie Floyd, a Rockbridge County native, and Ben Ford, who grew up in nearby Greenville, have been riding bulls (Ford) and ranch broncs (Floyd and Ford) in the American Rough Stock Association for the last couple years.

Together they have chalked up some impressive rides. When a cowboy or cowgirl actually stays on for the 8 seconds, it’s called “covering your ride.” Out of his 25 to 30 broncs, Ford has covered around five, he said. Sadie adds that out of 55 attempts, she’s covered seven or eight.

Both know they will face new challenges at the Virginia Horse Center because the Lone Star broncs are considered higher caliber and nationally competitive. Floyd explained, “We haven’t ridden broncs like this before. These horses are super athletes, worth up to $20,000 each and well cared for. They are selectively bred and trained to get rid of their riders. Bigger, meaner, faster. They like to buck and they know their jobs.”

Floyd weighs a little over 100 pounds soaking wet. But to live through the hazards of bronc riding, she ups the ante. Sturdy boots, spurs, heavy jeans and a colorful Western shirt, along with a big cowboy hat she knows she will lose by the second or third jump. Add to that a tactical type vest that was meant to stop a bullet and may need to turn a flying hoof traveling just about as fast.

A fan of the fast and furious since childhood, Floyd is a veteran foxhunter, mule trainer across the U.S., and schooler of spooky high jumpers. But she eschews the safety helmet of many riders. “It limits my field of vision to the point that it is safer without one,” she explained. And if she doesn’t go flying off from the bone jarring 5- to 6-foot high jumps, the pick-up man is supposed to ride alongside to bale her off. “Plus,” she explained, “I know when I’m going off and I get loose and pick my place to land.”

Floyd is quick to explain that women’s bronc riding was popular over 100 years ago. But in 1929, after a competitor was killed in an accident involving the sport, women were relegated to promotional activities that evolved into women’s barrel racing and in 1948 to the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association. But women’s inclusion in previously men’s only events is once more becoming accepted.

Floyd has been working hard to facilitate the equal inclusion. She has helped coach a women’s ranch bronc division at rodeo school in Pennsylvania. “I prefer to compete in the men’s division, though,” Floyd said, adding that tends to engender more respect and feels more empowering. “No breaks, not easier horses, no hand holding. It’s really about being treated equally, something most equine sports are already famous for.” -It didn’t take Ford long after he hung up his guns following a stint with the U.S. Marines to pick up a lasso and plunk on a 10-gallon hat.

“My hero was always John Wayne; I watched all his movies growing up,” he said. “The cowboy legend and way of life just kinda sunk in.”

While the East lacks those wide Western plains, it does have plenty of local rodeo competitions.

With no horse riding experience, Ford was feeling his way on beginner bulls when he met Floyd. “Our first date was to a rodeo,” he said.

Floyd has helped Ford to catch up on horse riding skills with trails, long gallops, jumping and even a little fox hunting with Middlebrook Hounds. And helped him to realize his lifelong dreams of riding broncs.

The couple is now engaged and traveling the rodeo circuit in the Carolinas, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and, of course, Virginia.

Ford is a student farrier at the Kentucky School of Farriery, driving home every weekend. He graduates in March with a career he can work around his rodeo schedule. Floyd works with autistic children and helps with equine assisted therapy and programs at Half-Halt Inc. near Buena Vista where she also keeps her barrel racing mule Maggie. -While Floyd and Ford naturally share the way of life, faith and philosophy that typifies the Cowboy Way, they also share the attitude that goes with the legendary sport of rodeo, what it signifies, and their unique interpretation.

Both agree that precompetition jitters are the worst. “Yes, we get scared,” said Floyd.

They absorb that time by keeping busy, drawing their broncs and go order, saddling in the chutes, helping the other cowboys and cowgirls to ensure all is correct and safe. But for each, when they throw that leg over the bronc, wrap the halter rope, and find their stirrups, memories of wrecks, crowd noise, their own hesitation, fades to a pinpoint.

“I guess we really are adrenaline junkies,” Ford admitted.

Floyd agrees. “Getting ready is like an out of body experience. But when I get on that horse and nod my head, I get really quiet inside and I am good. It’s really humbling, too, when I don’t make the ride.”

For Ford, the ability to recognize and respect the fear, but to push through it is key. “That requires discipline in mind and body. You become responsible for yourself and that animal. The job is there and you get it done.” Since he’s a new rider, he knows his determination will make it work. “It’s all on me; it’s a competition between me and that horse.”

“We are making some unique memories together,” said Floyd. “We are showing that accepting a difficult challenge, accepting our spills, breaks and bruises, and seeing it through is how life itself really is.”