Weekend Cowboys Show What They’re Made Of

Simi Valley resident Dennis Swearingen got bucked off his bronco and slammed into the dirt in front of about 2,500 spectators at the Simi Valley Days Elks Rodeo Sunday.

But he didn’t mind.

Swearingen, 31, was one of about 80 cowboys who rode broncos and bulls, wrestled calves and roped steers on the final day of the two-day rodeo, competing for fun, glory and about $9,000 in prize money.

“I got what they call ‘sent over the dashboard,’ ” he said. He said he was out of practice because he hadn’t ridden since he broke his ankle six weeks ago riding a bronco at a Costa Mesa rodeo.

Now that his ankle has healed, Sunday’s contest served as “kind of a confidence-builder,” Swearingen said. He plans to ride in three different rodeos in Southern California next weekend.

Swearingen, a graphic artist, began competing about two years ago after he decided that his previous sport of auto racing had become too expensive. It cost him only $25 to enter Sunday’s bronco-riding contest.

He walked away without a dime of prize money.

But John Zinskey, 30, of Fillmore said he and other weekend cowboys compete in rodeos for the sport, in addition to the money.

It’s “man over beast, you know?” he said. “You’re trying to conquer the beast.”

In addition to the 80 cowboys, Sunday’s event also included about 30 women riders in the barrel-racing competition, the only rodeo contest open to women. Contestants came mainly from throughout Southern California, with some from neighboring states such as Nevada and Colorado.

About a dozen animal rights protesters who picketed outside the rodeo at Madera Road and Los Angeles Avenue said they don’t like the methods that the contestants use to conquer the animals.

Wrestling steers and strapping the flanks of bulls and broncos to make them buck is cruel to the animals and “is total exploitation,” said protester Michelle Franck, 18, a Moorpark College student and a member of a Ventura-based group called Animal Emancipation.

Franck and the other protesters urged festival-goers not to attend the rodeo. Most people either ignored their entreaties or were rude, they said.

Standing outside the pens holding the bulls, steers, calves and horses who were in Sunday’s contest, a group of cowboys defended the sport’s treatment of the animals.

The straps tied around the flanks of bulls and broncos are uncomfortable to the animals, causing them to buck trying to get the straps off, some of the cowboys said.

But the straps aren’t painful, the cowboys said.

Zinskey said he thinks that the animals buck partly because they know it’s expected of them.

“It’s as much a job for the bulls as it is for the riders,” said Zinskey, who works in set lighting for Warner Brothers in Burbank during the week. “They’re not dumb animals.”

Even the rodeo announcer Sunday announced at least once to the audience Sunday that the rodeo had a veterinarian in attendance but that animals are rarely injured in rodeos.

Despite these assurances, Simi Valley resident Suzan Blazey, 30, and her friend Karen Lucas, 28, shook their heads in concern as they watched a bucking bronco running around the rodeo arena.

“We’re wondering if the animals were in pain in any way,” Blazey said. “I’m not a radical in any way but, you know, you wonder.”

Sunday’s rodeo was the first one for both Blazey and Lucas.

Although they were concerned about the animals, they said they enjoyed the event, which was sponsored by the Simi Valley Elks Lodge.

And neither woman believes that rodeos will eventually go out of fashion because of the rising public concern for animals’ rights.

“I think it’s going to catch on in popularity, actually,” Blazey said, just as country-and-Western style music and clothes have become fashionable in recent years.

“It’s that Western feeling,” Lucas said, explaining the popularity of rodeos. “It’s American.”