The Daily Courier/ Matt Hinshaw Scott Keogh, a pro rodeo cowboy a long way from home in Queensland, Australia, makes final preparations before the gate flies open during Monday night’s saddle bronc riding competition in Prescott.
PRESCOTT - The signs have been out for a while welcoming everyone into town for the Prescott Frontier Days World's Oldest Rodeo.
Not that hanging them early matters when it comes to the competitors. As far as they're concerned, you could have waited until Monday morning and still would have been ahead of the arrival of most into Prescott.
Monday evening may have been the opening night of six days of rodeo at the Prescott Rodeo Grounds this week, but for a rider or roper, all that means is nobody has posted a score to beat yet.
Bo Casper, a 26-year-old bareback rider from Fort Scott, Kan., has moved around so much he had to pause for a moment before remembering he came into town from a rodeo in Lehi, Utah, on Sunday night.
He posted a 77, good for a tie for third place.
"I loved it," Casper said of opening night. "It sets the whole pace for everything and it's just a great time to be going.
"It's just to have fun. When you set the pace, everyone is looking at you and (it's like) 'Here I come and come and get me.'"
Of course those chasing Casper and the other leaders are chasing his score. To chase him, they would have to follow him to Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin over the next four days, including three separated stops on July 4th this Friday.
In town for four or five hours, an 8 second ride, and on to the next stop.
"Just another rodeo, you've just got to feel out the start, feel out the cattle," Ivan Coleman said after posting a 6.6 in steer wrestling. "The first day here, I was the first out this morning in the slack. You're kind of like a guinea pig on the start in how far you're going to let them cattle out there. It was kind of a guessing game for me this morning."
Coleman was in Greeley, Colo., this past Saturday. After a brief stop in Prescott he's competing this morning in Window Rock, this afternoon in Utah, on to Oregon, and on and on.
It was Coleman's first stop at the World's Oldest Rodeo. The 29-year-old veteran said it was a pretty good rodeo and he loved the grand entrance and the tribute to the troops.
That's one thing he might remember as he loaded up and headed off to Window Rock about 20 minutes after his run.
The grind of moving from one town to the next only gets harder when a brief stop doesn't go the way you hope.
Bill Snure, a native of Douglas, put up a run of 11.9 seconds in calf roping, but it didn't count as the calf got out.
Competing so much this time of year makes it just another day at the office, but it's still a bad day at the office.
"It's tiring," Snure said. "You get tired and if you're not winning it's pretty easy to get down on yourself this time of year.
"It's all part of this business. That's what separates the men from the boys."
Snure won't get a chance to redeem himself in Prescott. He, too, moves on to Window Rock and will have to get back on track there, making his brief stay in Prescott a disappointing one.
"That's pretty disheartening," he said. "You've got to be mentally tough in this business more than anything. I've got an eight-hour drive ahead of me tonight. It didn't go quite the way I wanted and you've got to dwell a while."
But Snure has been in this game for 18 years and been to Prescott seven times, so he knows the score. He has even won here, as well as his father, his brother and his grandfather.
And even though he didn't perform as well as he would have liked, it wasn't all bad.
"It's nice to come close to home," Snure said. "I'm not driving as far with diesel this year. So I'm trying to stay around here and it's always nice to come here."
