Stampede’s bull and bronc riders say eight seconds on animals long enough at rodeos

CALGARY — Eight seconds is synonymous with rodeo, even if its origins are hazy.

That time interval is unique to rodeo in sport. But how was it determined that someone should ride a bucking bull or bronc for about the same amount of time it takes to start your car and back out of the driveway?

Rodeo announcer David Poulsen of Claresholm, Alta., who will call his 32nd Calgary Stampede starting Friday, said there wasn’t a time limit in rodeo’s earliest days.

“Most ranches and outfits had a horsebreaker on staff and maybe more than one,” Poulsen explained. “It got to be kind of a competition where one ranch would challenge another and just say, ‘Let’s see if your guy can ride better than our guy.’ There wasn’t a time limit initially.

The guy would ride for as long as he could.

“Eventually it got to be where it was a judged event. Once that happened, you needed a time frame and chutes. For a time, the ride was actually 10 seconds long. I’m not sure exactly when that changed, but eventually it did.”

Fred Schnell concurs with Poulsen in his 1971 book “Rodeo! The Suicide Circuit.” He wrote that horses were ridden until they stopped bucking prior to the establishment of 10- and eight-second limits.

Saddle bronc star Zeke Thurston of Big Valley, Alta., believes eight seconds is the performance sweet spot for horse and rider to produce a high-scoring ride.

The 23-year-old is attempting to win a fourth straight title at the annual Stampede rodeo that offers $2 million in prize money.

“When you get on a horse that’s bucking really hard, they’re exerting as much energy as they possibly can,” Thurston said. “You exert as much energy as you can in a short period of time.

“Your average bronc will probably take 11 to 12 jumps in eight seconds. You’ve got that many jumps to kind of work with.

“Six seconds I don’t believe would be long enough to showcase to the best of your ability or the livestock’s. Ten might be a little bit too long.”

Bull rider Scott Schiffner of Strathmore, Alta., said both he and the bull are often physically maxed out at eight seconds, if he can stay on that long to get a score from the judges.

“Especially against the best bucking bulls in the world ... it’s like the 100-metre race in the Olympics,” Schiffner said.

“Some of the best rides I’ve made, I wouldn’t have wanted it to go 8.1 seconds, I know that.”

“About eight seconds, a lot of animals are kind of done or on their way down. Even the riders too,” said bareback rider

Jake Vold of Ponoka, Alta., the three-time Canadian champ.

“Eight seconds seems to be kind of that time limit when I think you get the full potential out of yourself and your animal athlete.”

Trying to get off a bronc or bull safely can keep a rider on an animal for more than eight seconds, but judges score only what they see before the eight-second horn.

The 1994 movie “8 Seconds” about bull rider Lane Frost imprinted that phrase outside the rodeo community. Frost died in 1989 at age 25 when he was gored by a bull’s horn and trampled at a rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyo.

No one in the rodeo community seems to be agitating to go back to 10 seconds. There has been talk in the bull-riding community of six seconds to produce more successful rides.

“If I was to alter it in any way, I would go to six or seven seconds with the calibre of bulls they have these days,” said Tuff Hedeman, a retired four-time world champ.