Tomorrow night, the Sandy Downs Arena will be filled with the sounds of bull riding as the Ultimate Bull Riding Battle returns to host an evening of family fun and competition for athletes of all kinds including the bulls themselves.
“If the guys stay on for eight seconds then the bull will get a score, and the rider will get a score, and they both win money at the competition,” Dustin Young, one of the event coordinators said.
The gates open at 5:30 p.m. but the main bull riding competition begins at 7:30 p.m. There will be food vendors and a ‘funny man fritz’ there to get the crowd started with some mini bull bucking leading up to the main event.
“The thing that is great about this is the set of animal athletes that are coming because each one of these bulls are raised by individual owners from all across the Western United States,” Young said. “These are the ones they have sorted out of their whole herds of whatever they are raising, and they think they are the best to haul.”
The Ultimate Bull Riding Battle has teamed up with the Idaho Food Basket and is raffling off a Traeger Grill with all the proceeds going to the Idaho Food Basket’s organization.
“It’s great and we are excited to be able to help out the community, just like they help us out to do this event,” Young said.
Bull Riding has been a sport in the U.S. since the 1850s. According to americancowboy.com bull riders began to break away from the traditional rodeo scene and created their own organization and governing rules in 1992.
According to the article, bull riding is considered the fastest growing sport in the United States. Because of the growth in the sport, there has been an increased demand for bulls that know how to buck. Animal athletes were born, and now even the bucking bulls are scored.
“Being a retired bull rider and being involved with raising stock and stuff, we just saw the potential of being able to showcase these bulls at Idaho Falls and we hoped to get the interest that we are getting,” Young said.
Young, along with his brother Jim Young and their partners, had one of their bulls qualify for the PBR Finals in 2016 and 2017 through competition-style bull riding events.
“We are all ex-professional bull riders, so we just have a love for the sport,” Young said, “It’s pretty exciting to go buck your bulls at the biggest bull riding event in the world.”
Tickets to the Ultimate Bull Riding Battle competition this weekend at the Sandy Downs arena are available online at allevents. in/ultimate-bull-riding-battle for $15 a person or get them at the gate for $18.