GOOD JUDGING OR BAD BUSINESS?
(an excerpt from the Coffeyville/Imboden file)            

Imboden, AR: Since we were bragging on the Ponca City judges, you can’t fault these two guys.  They wrote down their buck off stock scores and times and they came away with an 88 winning score which may keep this rodeo in the PRCA column for another year.  

Judges can help a rodeo or kill one.   Over the years I’ve seen some guys with a chip on their shoulders who RELISHED punishing certain contractors with low scores.  Yeah… they might’ve been right on their stock or ride scores but what’s the point?  Try to embarrass a contractor out of the business?  That won’t happen.  You could have revealing pictures of a contractor with two sheep, a chicken, and a goat and he’d just keep on rollin'. 

Maybe the judges thought they could get the committee to change contractors?   Might work but most small rodeo contracts pay zilch and no one else wants them EXCEPT a non PRCA producer.  But let’s say the judge IS successful and runs the rodeo out of the PRCA ranks.  No biggie, except we have lost maybe $4,000-$5,000 in added money… a place for PRCA members to compete for a check which could supplement their incomes and help them make ends meet, eliminated a place for some permit guys to go, lost jobs for the contractor, contract personnel, and JUDGES… and took approval fees, Procom fees, circuit fees, insurance premiums, and JUDGES fees out of the Ranch Headquarters operational budget.

The sad thing is that some of those chips on their shoulders guys may STILL be judging and may have influenced another generation of judges.

I judged a rodeo one time… a two header…couple thousand added but one of that circuits three biggest rodeos.  They had a decent set of bulls and some really strong horses.  I judged it with a full time salaried pro.  Good guy… dressed nice in his free Wrangler clothes (which had been pressed and starched with his free laundry allowance)… even had Wrangler rain gear from head to foot.   Lucky me, I got to have some free coffee with him one morning at his free Holiday Inn while he was eating his usual free "GRAND SLAM EVERYTHING ON THE FARM" breakfast.   He even stopped by the Motel 6 and gave me a ride to the rodeo in his free rental car ONE time.   Think he’d flown in from California or New Zealand or somewhere.   He was tuckered out but he sucked it up and did his job.   What a PRO.

The first perf he got EVERY horse event guy at the gate.   He was proud—humming that Macho Macho Man tune.   He was known for being tough on the gate.   Were they weak spurer-outers?   You bet.  Would 90 percent of the judges got most of them?   Probably not.   Their feet were over the points but when the horse’s feet hit the ground those guys weren’t strong enough to hold them on those stout, normally-not-in-that-circuit, horses.  

The next perf out he marked a couple of bronc riders a 2 and a 4 ride—to be winning the rodeo with 50 and 65 point scores.  Embarrassed the heck out of them.  They were that circuit’s best.   Were those 2 and 4 point rides?  Maybe—if you compared them to the World Champ.   But maybe for those guys to even stay ON those strong broncs—maybe they deserved a 15-16-17 marking.  With 20-21 point horses that could’ve resulted in a leading score of 75-76.  I was stupid and 10 and 13’ed their rides so I certainly contributed to the problem.  But I was staying at the Motel 6 and had no quarters for the 8 inch TV or the Vibra-Bed --so I have an excuse.   But (quickly shifting the blame back on the other guy) he also 18’ed both horses.  “By GOD they weren’t as good has Harry’s”. 

Well…. to make a long story less long… after the first go round that rodeo had only 5 bareback riders (spread over 3 perfs) and no bronc riding on Friday night and Saturday night.   They turned out and went to some amie back there.   Almost no added money … weak horses… qualified rides…. higher scores and that am-ie at least got to HAVE the horse events that weekend. 

I stayed a day after the PRCA rodeo and went with a couple of the top circuit timed event contestants and the stock contractor and met with a very upset rodeo committee.  It took everything we could do to keep them in the PRCA ranks.   Everything we could do plus a $3,000 cut in the contractor’s contact.  Meanwhile, that salaried pro… who the rodeo business was paying a salary, travel, insurance, retirement, feeding and clothing,  etc… was on his macho way—destroying some other rodeo. 

RIGHT is RIGHT but if that kind of guy is allowed to be right too many times there won’t BE A BUSINESS.

Bryan McDonald
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