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up with a mouthful of arena dirt instead of an armful of steer. If the horse outruns the steer, you won't have a chance to wrestle it to the ground.

Bringing down a steer is no easy feat, either, even if you make a perfect landing. These rodeo bovines generally weigh between 500 and 600 pounds, and even though most bulldoggers are pretty brawny, the steer outweighs them considerably. The wrestler has to grab the horns and part of the animal's head and bend it until the steer falls. The bulldogger accomplishes this by digging his boot heels in, so steer wrestlers usually wear cowboy boots with an exaggerated "cowboy wedge" heel.

Bulldogging is strictly a timed event. There are no extra points awarded for style or flair. The timer stops when the steer has been successfully wrestled. The steer's fall must be complete, with all four feet off the ground and pointing in the same direction for the fall to count. If the steer stumbles and falls on his own, the cowboy has to set him up and tackle him again or wait patiently until the animal stands on his own.

This is fast-paced competition, often referred to as "the big man's event." While many bull and bronc riders are often slim and wiry, it takes a pretty large man to bring down a full grown steer. Even so, bulldogging has the highest injury rate of any timed rodeo event, for both man and beast.

Source: Years of marriage to a rodeo cowboy.

Learn more about this author, Holle Abee.
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