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Longhorn rodeo hits the Palace

When most people screw up on the job, they can count on their boss breathing down their neck. When Stacy Lattin screws up on the job, he can count on a 1,500-pound bull standing on his neck.

Lattin, a world-renowned bull-fighting clown with the traveling Longhorn World Championship Rodeo, spends his weekends in the ring, taunting, enraging and hopefully avoiding the powerful beasts. As a bull-fighter, the 27-year-old, bold but a little crazy, Lattin is responsible for occupying bulls' attention long enough for riders to make it safely out of the ring after dismounting or being dismounted from their rides.

"It's exciting," Lattin proclaimed. "It just gets your blood pumping. It's like living on that edge. That bull out there, he can take your life. It doesn't happen very often because we take a lot of safety precautions, but you can lose your life out there. If someone tells you they ain't scared, then they're crazy, cause anytime you stand a chance of any physical harm, you're gonna be scared."

Born in Kingston, N.Y., and later moving to Oklahoma where he lives while not on the road, Lattin said rodeo is his life.

"I grew up around rodeo," he said. "My mom and dad both rodeoed, and my uncle was a stock contractor. It's just been in the family and been around all my life. That's about all I know."

While attending Oklahoma State University, Lattin worked behind the scenes in rodeos and decided that he wanted to spend his life working in the sport.

"I roped bulls for a while and tried to ride 'em, and roped steers," he said. "I've done every end of it. This is just where I get my kicks."

Dressed in his traditional rodeo clown makeup and gear, Lattin climbs into the ring each weekend to make the rodeo bulls run and buck, giving the riders and fans a run for their money. The rider tries to keep on top of the bull past the eight-second whistle (the qualifying time for riders). Lattin is responsible for directing the bull's attention away from the cowboy and towards himself.

"To me, it's real rewarding to have someone come up and say thanks, I appreciate you being there," Lattin said. "It's real rewarding in friendship and a lot of fellowship, stuff like that. It's like a big family, and that's probably what keeps me in it most. ... Everybody takes care of each other, and everyone's out there to help everybody."

In a game of cat and mouse, Lattin has the fun job of staring down and taunting a wild animal more than 10 times his weight, and then using his keen reflexes and acrobatics to avoid getting trampled by the beast. In his pursuit to keep the spectators on the edge of their seats, the 5-foot-7-inch rodeo cowboy has had unfortunate run-ins with bulls on more than one occasion.

"The average bull weighs anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 pounds. When you got something like that hits you or steps on you, you know the human body's gotta give somewhere," Lattin laughed.

"I've had some broken ribs, fingers, broken collarbone, I've got some pins in my leg, stitches. Just normal, everyday, on-the-job stuff.

"I've had good friends of mine be right there in the arena and die right there, right in front of me," he continued. "Two good friends of mine got killed right there in front of me. Just by a bull stepping on 'em, or throwing 'em off into the fence just right. It's a serious bill out there. You can lose your life in that arena. It's no game out there. If it's your time, it's your time. It don't matter if you're layin' in bed or flying in an airplane or walking or whatever. If it's your time it's your time. Maybe we increase that risk a little more, but that's probably what makes it so much fun."

While skill and experience have helped Lattin to avoid fatal injury in the ring, practice and training have also helped him lead such a productive career in rodeo. With family members in the sport as far back as he can remember, he said a combination of family training and professional training helped to prepare him for a life in the ring.

"There are several of the champions from years past who put on schools," Lattin said. "They'll put on bull riding schools, horse riding schools, roping schools, whatever the event is. It's just like anything else. You go to school to be a lawyer, we have schools to go to. Rodeo is mostly learned through the family and handed down from generation to generation."

While he considers himself a rodeo cowboy, Lattin said the legendary cowboys of the Old West are pretty much extinct today. "I'd like to consider myself a cowboy, but I don't know nowadays if there's really any cowboys left," he said. "We're rodeo cowboys. There's a difference between a working cowboy and rodeo cowboy. Someone who makes their living out on the range working cows, taking care of horses, gathering hay, that's a working cowboy. He's not out here on the road going from town to town to every rodeo. He's there at home on that ranch, and that ranch is how he makes his living, so that's a working cowboy as opposed to a rodeo cowboy."

As rodeo cowboys grow older, injuries get more painful and fighting and riding bulls becomes more difficult. Many of the competitors are forced to either leave the rodeo business, or to accept a less strenuous position in the industry.

"Some guys will go on to be barrelmen or clowns and just entertain the crowds, while others just retire and become judges or try to become stock contractors," Lattin said. "Others move on to farming or ranching and become working cowboys."

"Usually about the time you take a good hooking or something and you're hurting and sitting back in the locker room, you wonder why you're out there," he continued. "I'll always jump back and go right back there the next night. Somebody'll walk by and pat you on the back and say, `I'm glad you were out there. I wouldn't get on if you weren't out there.' That makes it all better. Or a little kid walks by and smiles and asks for your autograph. That makes it all worth while.