Bronc riding or Bull riding better for me?

Just wondering which event would better suit me? I am 6'0 208lbs. Not fat I bodybuild and lift weights. Going to lyle sankeys school in april...which event would better suit me you think? I really like the bareback riding, bulls seem fun though and every girl likes bullriders! Lol. Thank you btw Im 24 now...kind of a late start but I don't give a flip never to old to rodeo and I always wanted to do it. Thanks and appreciate the responses! God bless!

BTW I really wanna do steer wrestling but gotta find a school for that I don't have a horse anyway so that's kinda outta the question of having my own equipment.


EDIT:sorry everyone I seen I put bronc riding and bareback in my thread title. I meant bronc riding or bull riding!!!

If you've never done either, then you should try them all and see which one you enjoy more...or which one you have an affinity for. Bronc riding and bull riding take a whole different set of skills and a whole different mindset.


Either way, don't ever look at the ground .

Bronc riding is a blast. I rode ranch broncs for a couple years, but the hubby put an end to it. (yes I am a girl). I don't know much about bull riding besides watching it and riding a wild cow at a ranch rodeo a couple times lol. Good luck!! :)

Edit, I second Smrobs on not looking at the ground. And the key with riding bucking horses is staying loose. If you stiffen up, you'll bounce off like a sack of rocks.

Ride saddlebronc; horses don’t tend to come looking for vengeance once they get you off.

when you guys say never look at the ground what do you mean? Like always stay leaned back? Also I think I will try them all. Rodeo schools expensive though so its going to be a while before I get to all of them. Which would be better first? I was thinking bareback but damn I am a big guy for bucking horses.

Can’t really comment on bull riding or bareback for horses but given that you seem to be fairly big I’m guessing you would probably be better suited to saddlebronc. I did a little years ago and am probably about your size, maybe a bit lighter when I’m fit, and had a bit of fun doing it. I always found with riding other stuff (just fooling about with cattle, never any rodeos) that I never had the upper body strength in comparison to my weight to do any good as a bull rider or bare back bronc rider. All the good bull riders and bareback riders I have ever seen have been less than 6 foot tall and pretty light, and usually have a high strength to weight ratio. Then again, that might not matter, I don’t know.

No, you don't want to stay leaned back either.


There is an old saying that if you look at the ground, that's where you'll end up. The thinking behind that is that if you get to looking off to the side, that throws you off balance and you get dumped.

Here, on a bull, you can see how the rider keeps his gaze settled right in the middle of the animal's motion, almost like he's just watching the bull's shoulders. An animal can't go anywhere without his shoulders so if you keep them firmly in your line of sight, you have a better chance of sticking with him. Horses and bulls can sling their heads all over the place; up, down, toward their motion, away from their motion, etc, but their shoulders can never go somewhere that their body does not.

The actual ride is about a minute in.

And here's the same guy on a saddle bronc. Actual ride about 4 minutes in.

As for your size, they often use the same horses for both saddle bronc and bareback, and, since people are generally getting bigger, they prefer bigger horses. Many of the bucking horses we see these days have at least some draft breeding in them to give them bigger bones and feet and a bit more mass for the bigger cowboys.

Well, dangit, I guess I linked the same video twice .

Not sure where your located, but around here there's little jack pot rodeos that have practice bulls and broncs. For people just getting into it, they don't buck as hard as their main stock. Might be something to look into.
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I rode bareback horses, for about a dozen years from the early eighties to the mid nineties. At 5 foot 200+ lbs I gotta say you are probably a bit big for roughstock. Not too terribly many bareback riders that tall, I was one of the taller ones in my association and I am 5'8", so hardly a giant. Same is mostly true for bull riding. Strength plays a big part of it, but your center of gravity and leverage play a bigger part.
That being said there are 6 footers out there in all 3 roughstock disciplines, and in my experience most of those were saddle bronc riders, and they tended to be more on the leggy, lanky side.
Whatever you decide I applaud your decision to go to Sankey's school, smart move, you will learn a lot from Lyle and his staff. I know I did, and I had been riding bucking horses for years before I attended, if you do decide to go with bareback horses, Marvin and Mark Garrett as well as Lance Crump both put on excellent bareback schools