I’m walking towards the white dome of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and a picture-perfect family straight out of a Wrangler commercial is approaching. There’s mom, dad, a young boy and his older sister, a tween, who leads a beautiful tan horse that clip-clops behind the brood. They all wear cowboy hats, blue jeans, and easy smiles. The lad gives me a friendly wave as the iconic jingle for the annual, three-day horse-extravaganza at the Alliant Energy Center rings in my head: “It’s the great…(bum bum)…Midwest…(bum bum)…Horse Fair.”
And then I walk right into a pile of horse shit.
“Gotta watch where you step around here,” says the dad, who had every right to call me a greenhorn but was too polite. The family waits a moment until they fully pass me to laugh in unison. My night at the rodeo has begun.
The Midwest Horse Fair returned to the Alliant Energy Center April 22-24 after a two-year hiatus because of the pandemic. The fair attracts more than 60,000 attendees and is bustling when I arrive near the end of the first day. There are hundreds of vendors selling everything from saddles to horse semen. Throughout the day there are lectures and clinics on different styles of horsemanship and disciplines. I’m here for the big evening entertainment event: A rodeo officially sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. I had no idea it was part professional sport, part pageantry, and part vaudeville comedy show. It is my first rodeo, after all.
The sold-out show inside the Coliseum starts solemnly with a tribute to U.S. soldiers and a prayer while “Taps” booms over the speakers.
“Lord, we ask you to apply that great blanket of safety one more time. Watch over our livestock, our athletes, our personnel, our staff, our volunteers, and all of our fans,” says Kelly Kenney, the master of ceremonies for the rodeo, who is on horseback. “In the name of the champion of all champions, my Lord and savior, your son Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Asking the Almighty for protection seems prudent when the professional cowboys — competing for cash prizes — start jumping on bucking broncos. The announcer compares this to riding a jackhammer one-handed. The next competitive event seems even more insane: steer wrestling. This is when a cowboy chases down a steer on horseback, slides off the horse, and quickly wrestles the huge animal to the ground.
The crowd at the Midwest Horse Fair is most enthralled by the barrel racing event featuring cowgirls, several of whom are from Wisconsin. These competitors burst out of the gates on horseback, circle three barrels in a cloverleaf pattern at breakneck speeds and sprint back to the gate in less than 15 seconds. The horses lean so far into the tight turns it’s divine intervention they don’t just fall sideways onto the rider.
The competitive events are just a part of the bigger rodeo show. While the next event is being set up, the crowd is entertained by the rodeo clown/barrelman John Harrison and Kenney, the announcer, who plays the straight man. Harrison is painted up in white clown makeup, tells hokey jokes, and works the crowd like a seasoned pro.
“The CDC came out with this today. Good news kids,” says Harrison. “This summer, if you wear two swimsuits, you can now pee in the pool.”
The crowd groans but Harrison ends up getting the last laugh. After playing the friendly doofus for most of the night, the rodeo clown “volunteers” to fill in for a cowboy who mysteriously hasn’t shown up. Feigning that he doesn’t know what he’s doing until the moment of truth, Harrison does 360 spins and handstands while riding a galloping horse around the arena. It’s an amazing feat of athleticism and the audience is rightly impressed.
The showstopper of the evening is the very last act.
“Please welcome to the Midwest Horse Fair, the flying Frenchman, the bull jumper himself, Emmanuel ‘Manu’ Lataste!” shouts the announcer. “This isn’t a game. It’s serious business.”
Lataste, a slim man wearing all white except for a teal tie and cummerbund, lives up to his name. With a 2,000-pound bull charging towards him, the Frenchman front-flips over the beast with ease. His next jump he launches over the bull with a twisting backflip. Several children near me stare with gaping mouths as Lataste performs.
Say what you want about this nod to American wild west nostalgia. The only competition featuring female athletes was by far the most exciting. The middle-aged clown with the corny jokes has the core strength of an elite gymnast. And the biggest badass among a bunch of real cowboys is a petite foreigner who wears a teal tie.
The seven standard rodeo events:
- Bareback riding
- Steer wrestling
- Team roping
- Saddle bronc riding
- Tie-down roping
- Barrel racing
- Bull riding
