Bull ride and wild horse race on Friday

How do you score sports centered around riding big animals like bulls and wild horses? It’s not as if you can see a ball go through a hoop, or someone carry a ball into an end zone.

The Star asked George Kohout, president of the Ridge Riders Saddle Club — the organization that puts on local rodeos, including Friday’s Cleatis Lacy Memorial Bull Riding and Wild Horse Racing — to describe how those events are scored.

In bull riding, the rider has to stay on the beast for eight seconds and will be judged on that eight seconds. He has to “supposedly be in control,” Kohout said.

“If he’s flopping all over and about to fall over, his score will go down,” Kohout explained. “The more he stays in the middle, the more he stays in that position, the more points he gets.”

Kohout explained that the bull also gets scored based on how high it kicks, and how much it travels around the arena. If it runs around the arena more than it bucks, the bull will get a lower score.

The rider and the bull are each scored in a range of 1 to 50 by two judges, the combination of which makes up the rider’s final score.

The bulls at the event are being provided by McMillan Leighton.

Wild horse races, on the other hand, are a time-based competition.

With three men on a team, one is the buffer who helps control the horse’s head, another puts the saddle on the animal, and a third tries to get on and ride it through a set of two barrels or a marker of some type, Kohout explained.

With 13 teams signed up for the event Friday, six teams will go first, then the next seven teams, with the top three of each race moving onto the “short round” of six teams. The winner of that will get the whole kit and caboodle.

The wild horses are being provided for the event by Steve Palmer.