MALE SPEAKER: Get in the hold now.
Get in the hold now.
Whoa!
Come on.
Turn around.
EARL TSOSIE, JR: When we get to rodeos now, we meet people.
And that's when we have our time, we meet a lot of people.
We have our own ways of making a living, like this.
The triple B, that's a good association triple B, they're
giving back to us.
A lot of these associations, they'll take you to
the finals and stuff.
But the amount of money is sometimes not there.
This is you and the animal, you and the horse that's
inside that chute.
Out during the ride when you're going at it to the
eight seconds, you know.
You don't hear much, you just see the horse going at it and
you doing your part.
That's just how it goes.
And you just get off the pick-up man.
And that's when you just tip your hat to the crowd like
thank you, guys.
I just got up, I ran.
Walking back, I'm talking to myself like you're
going to win today.
Like, this is your day.
I feel it already, that's why I woke up.
I was like OK, I'm going to get here, I'm going to get me
a good horse and I'm going to win.
And it turned out my way.
I'm pretty happy.
I've got some money in my pocket and
another belt buckle.
And it bumped me up in the standings.
And this rodeo's pretty good.
I've been here last year and I won it.
That's all there is to do out there.
There's no mall, no movie theater out there, so you got
to find something to do.
But it keeps you busy.
The weekend flies by fast and pretty soon the rodeo again.
BERT JONES: I started at a young age with just having
practice bulls.
And then getting interested in buying bucking bulls.
All right, now we're just going to load up the bulls.
So I've been in the bucking bull business
for about 10 years.
And the bull run part maybe ever since I was
12, so about 16 years.
Yeah, we're going to hook up the trailer and then we'll
chase the bulls into a pen right here.
And then we'll back up the trailer right there and then
load up the bulls.
CORY ROSE CHEE: If I have homework or
anything, I won't ride.
I get my homework done first.
My mom always tells me school comes first.
You can always rodeo, there's always another rodeo.
And if I want to go to a rodeo and I have a class, she says
Cory Rose, go to class.
It's usually on the weekends.
Usually Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are when the
rodeos take place.
I compete with whatever.
I enjoy competing with men though.
It's a rush, an adrenaline rush.
Not many women can do it.
That's my strongest event, team roping.
And barrel racing, I'm not really interested.
But my mom pushes me for the all-around.
Good boy.
Usually when I'm up here, I just let him come up and sit
and just look at the barrels.
And then you'll notice that his ears--
he'll tell you when he's ready.
When you're ready, he'll know when you're ready.
You can just see by his ears, one of his ears will be down
and one will be looking towards that first barrel.
Or both of them will be up , looking at that barrel, and
that's when he's ready to go.
It's hard to rodeo and pay for entry fees.
It's hard to find sponsors because
they're in the same situation.
Usually when you win you roll your money.
You roll it.
If you win, that's real good.
And if you lose, you're shit out of luck.
Yeah, we suffer for a while, and then you have to find your
own way home or anything, food-wise and your horse.
And if you win, you'll just keep going.
LENA MITIS CHEE: Going down.
Go ahead and cut the white one, too.
Come down the back side, right here.
Easy, pull it up, back further, and then
just slide on down.
She doctors with me a little bit, but she's still learning.
So I'm constantly riding her all the time about my way's
the right way.
CORY ROSE CHEE: My mom, she beads.
She'll sell her beadwork and everything.
Or it'll end up, my family will try to help out with my
sponsoring and everything.
LENA MITIS CHEE: With her dad, he ropes a
lot, and he gets her.
He'll throw a rope at that thing 100
times without missing.
We don't keep a lot of trophies.
I mean, we get buckles.
You're looking for buckles and you're looking for saddles,
breastcollars.
Anything that says, hey, I was there and I won.
This is what I got.
And that's what you're looking for when
you're going to rodeo.
Something to show that hey, I'm this good and I can do it.
Bragging rights is what it is.
EARL TSOSIE, JR: When I was raised up, we were kind of low
on money and trying to help out my mom and everything.
Now we're up there and a lot of people look up to us now.
Back then, they probably were thinking they won't succeed,
you know what I mean?
It's a good thing I joined the rodeo.
Because if I didn't join the rodeo, I don't know what I'd
be doing now.
I'd have probably been doing something crazy with my life.
But no, this really changed me.
So now I just go rodeo full time.
It really gave me a positive attitude and stay up there.
But every rodeo I hit, every weekend.
And I win, I place second, third, and then I get money
from there.
A good rodeo, good weekend, you'll at least walk away for
like maybe two grand.
So it's pretty good every weekend, it's how we pay our
stuff, you know?
I bring these back just to make my mom and
dad proud of me.
Show somebody I can do something.
When we entered, a bunch of riders were probably thinking
like they won't go long.
And now all them riders are ducking and diving for muscle.
But we don't worry about the other riders, we just throw
our stuff on the horse 110%.
CORY ROSE CHEE: When you can't focus, you can't win.
When you're at a rodeo and you're stressed
with all the crap--
I need to win this one.
If I don't win this one I'm out, I can't
get in for next weekend.
When I'm out roping sometimes, and I'm tired because I just
barely pulled in and it's my turn to rope, I kind of lose
concentration and slack off because I'm so tired.
And I'm stressing like if I don't win, and the what-ifs
and all the maybes and stuff.
But the key to it is practice, practice, practice.
But rodeo can wait.
School, my boys is taking care of them.
Making sure they're healthy, in shape, well taken care of.
The economy goes bad, I'm not going to sell my horses.
There's no way in heck I'm going to sell my horses.
Take anything else.
Take my car, I could care less.
Just as long as I have my horses.
These are my best friends.
When I have something wrong, I'll go outside and talk to
them, they'll just stand there.
They like to be loved.
But like I said, when it's time to do work, they know
when it is.
Once you get them out, every single day we're riding each
horse about an hour a day.
Bringing them up here, and running barrels.
Roping the dummies, then saddling up.
Roping your dummy off them, then that's
when they're golden.
EARL TSOSIE, JR: And this is where I was raised.
Where I spend most of my time, here at the horse corral.
Out there riding on the mountains, and herding sheep.
I started in sheep when five years old.
From there I just learned how to ride the horse.
This place is all family owned.
My grandpa's brothers live over there,
so this is all family.
So you can do whatever you want to do.
When I was raised up, my grandpa and grandma used to
just wake me up in the morning.
They used to tell me to go run.
If you really want something you have to go run and beat
the sun up.
So it's kind of like a traditional thing, I guess.
Like, if you run in the morning, that's where all the
good stuff come from.
If you beat the sun, you know you can beat anything.
I just need to get a new motor.
Fix it up a little, this will be my rodeo car.
Get me to some rodeos a lot faster.
I'm kind of like a rock and roll type of guy.
I listen to country here and there.
But kind of more into a little rock and roll--
it gets me going.
Maybe next year you'll see me cruising
this car to the rodeo.