CASPER — Spiderman stood nonchalantly in his pen at the Natrona County Fairgrounds as the Oil City spends a week as the center of the rodeo universe during the College National Finals Rodeo.
Horses were penned next to him, but Spiderman — who looks as big and bad as any bull at the CNFR — hasn’t been having a great time.
He’d been bullied by the other bulls.
But whether he gets along with his fellow rodeo brothers, the brindle bucking bull with a bulging physique can hold his own in the rodeo arena. He had done his job the night before, tossing a rider from Western Oklahoma State College before he could hang on for the requisite 8 seconds.
“I’ve got a brindle bull here that I put in with my horses so he’s by himself because he’s a really good, solid bull and he gets in fights,” said Kirsten Vold of Vold Rodeo Co. in Avondale, Colorado.
Now in her 25th year of managing the stock for the CNFR, Vold has seen this before. Managing the animals at the rodeo is a Western bovine ballet at times. That means recognizing which animals can and can’t be around others between rides.
In the case of Spiderman and getting in tussles with other bulls, “He’s tough, but he doesn’t win,” Vold said. “And he can really get hurt badly, and you don’t want him to get hurt and you don’t want to hurt anything else.”
Such is the life of a rodeo rough stock contractor, who has to ensure the bulls and broncs from 10 Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association stock contractors, all play nice together outside the rodeo arena and get to their gigs on time. But in her company’s 25th year overseeing the rough stock for the CNFR, Vold said she has learned what works and what does not.
“At the Casper fairgrounds they really have a pretty facility, and they have enough room for us to keep all the animals there,” she said. “I kind of have a pattern down of what works and how to set the pens up and how to facilitate.”
75 Bulls For CNFR
Vold said bulls with names like Spiderman, Trump Train, Harlem Nights, Albert and Earl are among 75 or so at the rodeo, some for the entire CNFR week, which concludes Sunday. While they are bred to bring havoc coming out of the rodeo chute, some relax when not in the arena while others take their attitudes with them all the time.
That means bulls bred to be big, bad Alphas sometimes don’t play nice with others.
“A lot of these bulls don’t get along well,” she said.
Visitors to the rough stock yard at the fairgrounds will see bulls all around, some few are penned together, and other pens with only a lone bull.
During a midweek visit at the CNFR, most seemed relaxed and not really ready to pound some flesh. Vold said that earlier in the week, the bulls were getting rowdy and some of her staff attributed it to rain that swept through.
Keeping them content is a constant challenge, especially when they can weigh in at 1,500 pounds or more.
“The biggest thing is getting them divvied up how they can get along,” Vold said. “Either you’ve got to give them a really big pen, where they get away from each other so they don’t tear up stuff. Or, like this morning, we had to put one bull in a little pen by himself.
“And they are together all the time, I mean I don’t know what gets into them.”
What gets into them is keeping most bull riders at the NCFR from staying on for 8 seconds. In the first round of competition this week, the bulls tossed cowboys 32 times while only five stayed on. In round two, six cowboys managed to make the 8 seconds, 27 did not.
The bulls know their business.
“All these will be on the pro rodeo circuit,” Vold said of the bulls at this year’s CNFR. “All these contractors are PRCA stock contractors, so all these bulls are on the professional level.”
Wyoming native Ira Dickinson competes at the College National Finals Rodeo for Tarleton State University. He's riding Vold Rodeo Co. horse Painted Fling to an 84.5 ride during. The score put him at the top of the saddle bronc competition early in the week. (College National Finals Rodeo) 
Spiderman, a brindle bull competing at the College National Finals Rodeo, chills out with some horses. He’d been getting bullied earlier in the week. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Bucking horses relax in their pen at the Natrona County fairgrounds. More than 200 horses were used during competition at the College National Finals Rodeo. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A bull relaxes in his pen at the Natrona County fairgrounds during a break from College National Finals Rodeo competition. About 75 bulls are needed for the event. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Kirsten Vold has been the stock contractor for the College National Finals Rodeo for 25 years, she said one of the biggest challenges is choosing the animal athletes so that the competition is fair. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
200 Broncs
The broncs are easier to manage.
Vold said the important thing for the 200 horses that are under her care throughout the week is to ensure they are getting good feed. She said the CNFR goes through a “huge effort” to ensure there is plenty of good hay and grain for the broncs.
“You’re not always going to have the same kind of hay and grain that you feed at home, but you try to get it as similar as possible so that they don’t go off the feed that you want them to eat,” she said. “Because when they are traveling and competing, they are just like any other two-legged athletes, they need to eat proper nutrition, a good diet, they have to be able to rest. Those are all expected things when they are expected to be at their best athletic ability.”
Statistics show the cowboys were holding their own against the equine athletes. There were 123 cowboys who scored points and 41 broncs who tossed their riders in the first two-plus rounds.
Vold said the biggest challenge for the stock contractor at the rodeo is to try and ensure fairness for the athletes with the animal selection. The selection process to choose the right animals for the rodeo started two months ago. Some horses will just buck once and then their owner, a subcontractor brought in by Vold, will head off to another venue.
“Some of the horses will buck twice while they are here throughout the entire time,” she said. “Probably half of them will go only one time.”
Most of the bulls will buck twice during the weeklong competition.
Raising Bucking Horses
Among the 10 roughstock contractors, Vold said she brought her own bucking horses raised at her family ranch in Colorado to compete. She keeps track of each horse’s genetics to breed high-quality rodeo stock.
“All the horses I brought here, I raised,” she said. “When you have one of these kids step out at the start of their career and maybe one of your young animals are at the start of their career —and then you go out there and win a round on them or something — it’s a great thing to see and it’s a great thing to be a part of.”
Over her 25 years at CNFR, Vold has witnessed a lot of challenges. Last year it was a flash flood on a Thursday during CNFR week. A deluge sent waters running through the fairgrounds.
“The pens were just flooded and (fairgrounds staff) opened up the building and put the animals in there so they could get out of the mud. Because bulls have to be able to lay down, they can’t stand all the time,” she said. “They’ve really been great about taking care of us out here.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
