What happens when you go to do a remote broadcast at a Bull Riding and a guy asks if you want to ride that horse? You ride it. For a while.

I sit here Saturday morning with a couple aches where I shouldn't have aches. You get that way when you ride horse bareback. Especially when you haven't been on one for a while.

The guy I was talking to was Dan Frank. He is one of the judges for the NPRA Bullriding that is going on tonight at the W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds. As is usually the case, with 'Cowboy Folk,' if you just slow down a little bit from your city ways, you can hear a story. In this case it was a good one.

We were standing around talking about warmer weather. He said he'd just got back from Texas. Said the weather was much warmer there than here in South Dakota. I

Pic by JD Collins-KIKN-FM/Sprint Sioux Falls
Pic by JD Collins-KIKN-FM/Sprint Sioux Falls
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must have thought I had to 'one up him,' so I told him we had recently been in Mexico and had a chance to ride horse along the beach of the Caribbean.  I showed him the pic of my wife and I riding along the beach and he asked, were the horses pretty nice and gentle'? I said yep. That's when the story started.

Seems Dan and his wife are from North Dakota. His wife, (I never did catch her name) was a champion barrel racer. Sounds like it wasn't long ago she suffered an aneurism. Dan told the story that 'she was gone.' It happened in Rapid City in the middle of the rodeo arena. Dan and a couple other 'able hands,' kept her breathing till help showed up. They took her off to the hospital for what would be a tedious recovery and comeback.

Dan said, he retired that day. I could tell by the look in his eye, that this was turning from a 'horse story,' into a 'LOVE STORY' that I should be listening to closely. It was a good one.

Dan said, it was his wife's love for horses that probably kept her wanting to live. He said working with the horse was truly therapy. He said, 'she had to learn to walk and talk again and it was her horses that helped her do just that. The horse in the picture is one that helped her with her comeback.

He went on to say that they were just on their way back from Texas. They had been down south living out of their horse trailer. (some of them have some nice campers) She would participate in barrel racing and he likes to team rope. He said it's a great way to spend the winter.

The NPRA Bull Riding continues at the W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds Saturday night. Yes, there will be crashes and wrecks and great rides and awesome display of wild and western athleticism. As you watch the competition and listen to the excitement of the event, know this. For every cowboy in that building tonight, there are probably 50 awesome stories like Dan's.

I think it's real life stories like the from Dan, that make Cowboys such an interesting bunch.

Thanks for the ride Dan. Thanks even more for the story. Good luck and safe travels to you and your wife.

 

 

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