Area company specializes in rodeo safety gear
Rugged individuals who want to be a bull rider may be taking a ride to Naples, Texas, soon. It’s here that a newly re-located company is producing the sport’s premier line of safety gear wear.
Ride Right is the company owned by Sherry and Rex Thain which makes protective gear for bull riders. The Thains say fully 80 per cent of the world’s professionals use their product.
Primarily this is the protective vest over the rider’s chest and back which is like a shield and vital to the athlete but which also must be flexible.
The company also offers the sport’s custom equipment such as chaps, ropes, wire brushes to clean the ropes, gloves, resin, gear bags, mouth guard, rowels, spurs, boot straps, tee-shirts, belt buckles and patches.
The Thains are in their 25th year of manufacturing. They’ve moved their manufacturing business from Farmersville, Texas, to Naples because of their own life-sale change and the finding of a better site for manufacturing at the former R. J. Welch building in Naples. They’ve also found pleasing home and property at Glass Club Lake in Omaha.
The Ride Right vests are of either leather or cloth and are first sewn together with highly specialized design before padding of the Thain’s development is added in a customized fashion for each particular rider.
These vests are practically a lifetime purchase, the Thains say.
“We’ll get returns for repairs often from vests made by us 15 or more years ago,” Rex said.
Sherry Thain is the specialized seamstress for all Ride Right vests The emphasis is on quality work, she said.
Ride Right is also a madein-the-USA business, the Thains say. No farming out for manufacture overseas.
“We think our military background influences this decision,” Sherry Thain said.
The two do have a colorful military background. They met and married at a military base, and now it’s 42 years, seven children and 18 grandchildren later.
”I went to Army to get married at the ripe edge of 19,” Rex said. “It was either go to Germany or get married, support myself and go to college which I could do in the military.”
After serving four years, Rex went into the commercial real estate business and then began preparation to own his own investment company.
“We’re pretty close about divine intervention, and one night just before starting the business, I was told to go into this specialty of bull riding equipment manufacture. I knew nothing about it, but who was I to question.”
The two consider themselves good researchers and soon found out about making protective apparel. They first joined a friend who had a small business in producing rodeo equipment and learned from him before launching their bull riding protection venture.
“Western store, tack shops and feed stores would often have small rodeo equipment sections. We first manufactured for distributors who knew the field and market and then began selling direct or online and drop shipping the product from here for other stores who sell our line.”
In their Naples’ venture, the couple also want to have a walk-in front section for local customers wishing a more retail experience. They also might need customized bull riding equipment, which RideRight can do. The company also manufactures moto-cross cycling protective apparel.
The buildings they now own have plenty of warehouse and production space for the machines and material needed.
“We want to let people know we are here. We don’t have a timetable for being completely moved in. We are just happy the store is open, and we are more than comfortable in our surroundings,” the couple said.
The Thains said they realize bull riding is highly specialized. Professional bull riding has competitive events held in major stadiums, but often these are limited to 35 contestants.
“Still, the professional bull riding association champion earns a million dollars in prize money, and we know that in local rodeos the mutton busting contest in which children ride the sheep is one of the most popular events,” Rex said.
The Thains are eager to testify that their product is good for the consumer. It lasts and protects them along the way.
“The bull rider may need his vest only for eight seconds, but when he takes it off he takes care of it and keeps it,” Rex said.
In addition, the bull fighter needs protection, too, the owners say. Ride Right has a vest for him as well.
Bull fighter? Don’t know this performer? It’s not the matador, the Mexican counterpart. The American bull fighter is the rodeo clown. Ride Right provides a vest for him. Usually it’s just the shell of their standard vest.
This means the clown is both playing a shell game with that bull and advertising a shell vest for Ride Right.