Magpie & the Road
May 1, 2025
Vagabonds
May 2, 2025I could be trampled right now and I’d die a happy girl, I thought to myself as I was engolfed by the herd at Sankey’s ranch.
The sun had yet to crest the top of the hill on that brisk October morning at Sankey’s ranch, as I stood surrounded by curious horses, shooting photo after photo all the while trying to make new four-legged friends. I couldn’t help but be thrown back in time to the pasture where I grew up, surrounded by my own horses.
My family had horses. We weren’t classic rodeo cowboys, but we were mountain cowboys, taking our horses to the foothills and beyond, packing, camping, and hunting. Most of my time with them, though, was spent playing alongside them in the ditch and in their pasture. I would sit on Topsie, our overly patient Morgan horse, for hours. She may have only grazed a few yards, but I was sure we had made it over the mountain and back before the sun went down.
Back stage with the real stars
A few months before the October photoshoot, I met Wade Sankey, of Sankey Pro Rodeo, during a Stock Stars tour at the Sheridan WYO Rodeo. Wade (who supplies the horses) and his partner Matt Scharping, of Phenom Genetics (who supplies the bulls), led the tour backstage to meet the real stars of the rodeo — the roughstock broncs and bulls. “Roughstock” is the name for animals specifically bred and raised for bucking off cowboys.
Wade and Matt consider these horses and bulls to be true professional athletes with a job to do. In the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association roughstock events (bareback, saddle bronc, and bull riding) A ride is scored out of 100 points — 50 for the animal’s performance and 50 for the rider’s. Neither one can carry the score alone, it takes synergy between the two. For a professional rider trying to make a living, being paired with an animal who will perform to the utmost is vital to achieving the highest possible score. As trusted roughstock contractors, Sankey has delivered reliable, high-caliber teammates for rodeo cowboys over the last 31 years.
As of 100 years ago, according to Wade’s “old man,” bucking horses were undesirable animals that ranchers spent centuries trying to eliminate through selective breeding. With the advent of rodeo competitions, however, bucking horses came into fashion — and we have spent the last 100 years trying to breed the “buckiness” back in!
After so much time, it is impossible to attribute specific breeds to these horses. They are simply “bucking horses:” strong enough to handle the weight of a rider, to buck spectacularly, and to dump that rider off in the middle of the stadium.
It may surprise some of you to learn that 85% of of the roughstock broncs in the Sheridan WYO Rodeo are mares. Sounds like these girls have my dream job — eight seconds to kick and buck the cowboy off, and then the rest of the time spent running free, snarled hair and barefoot. So, having seen these horses in the rodeo, my next step had to be seeing them in what they probably consider their “normal lives” at Sankey’s ranch.
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