EMPRESS, Alta. – Joan Bouvier must have one of the hardest jobs in the world: she’s the mother of a professional bull rider.
To the bull riding world, her son is Côme Bouvier, the reserve champion at the 2003 Canadian bull riding championships and the rider who led the Canadian standings that year.
This season, he ranked third in Canada by the middle of May and placed in almost every rodeo in which he’d competed.
But for Joan, he’s just Côme, the little boy who started riding calves at an early age on the family ranch in southern Saskatchewan.
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He entered his first rodeo steer riding competition when he was 11.
Considering that her son makes his living trying to ride large, angry bulls, Joan sounds almost nonchalant about something that might drive other mothers to distraction.
“The knot’s in your stomach until he’s off and he’s ridden and you’ve heard the score and then you’re really excited about it, and you’re disappointed when he falls off,” she said.
“Every rodeo we’re always thankful that he’s not hurt and that he can go down the road to the next one.”
The injuries are the worst, she admitted, and there have been a few: several concussions; a disconnected shoulder; knee surgery; cracked ribs; and a bruised sternum.
He suffered his worst injury last year in Denver, Colorado, when he punctured a lung and broke a rib and his collarbone. His mother remembers that call. It came at 11:30 at night from the hospital.
“Then you’re definitely a mom,” she said. “Yeah, you’re concerned. He’s phoning. His collarbone’s broken. They’re taking X-rays to see if there are any internal injuries. Yes, you’re concerned. You’re definitely concerned. You get to become a very faithful, praying mother.”
Probably the worst accident for her was last summer in Cereal, Alta., at a rodeo that she and husband Antoine attended. A bull stepped on Côme, bruising his sternum and knocking the wind out of him so that he couldn’t breathe. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he spent a week recuperating.
“We were there so it was tough to see that,” she said. “When you find out after the fact, it’s not so bad.”
Côme knows what he’s put his mother through over the years.
“Of course she doesn’t let on that it’s that big of a deal, but I know I’ve caused her some stress, no doubt, just because of injuries,” he said.
“She likes what I’m doing, same as my dad, but I’m sure it’s hard for parents to see their kid when they’re lying in a hospital bed for a week. But she knows how much I want to do this and how much I want to win so they just stand behind me. But yeah, of course I’ve given her some grey hairs over it.”
While most 11 year olds who take a ride in the rodeo ring eventually give up the sport for safer pursuits, Côme said he stuck with it because of a drive to win.
“Some people do it, I guess, just for the sake of doing it or because their friends are doing it, but the more I did it the more I wanted to be the best there was and keep advancing, so that’s probably what kept me hooked.”
Once his parents noticed how serious he was, they enrolled him in rodeo school, which taught him how to do the sport safely and successfully. He turned professional in 1997 and qualified for the Canadian finals in 2000 and 2003.
In 2000 and 2001, he tried out for the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nevada, in which riders need to finish in the top 15 to compete. He finished 20th in the world both years, which he said is nothing to be ashamed of.
“I missed that, but when you know how hard it is to make the national finals, 20th is respectable.”
The pinnacle of his career came at the end of 2003 and early 2004 when he qualified for the Built Ford Tough series of professional bull riding, which Côme called the National Hockey League of his sport. He said riding on that tour was a dream come true.
At 28, he figures he has five years left as a professional bull rider as long as he isn’t hurt too badly.
After that, he plans to become a rancher. He has already bought land north of his parents’ ranch near Empress, which is where the Bouviers moved six years ago. He is buying cows in preparation for his future career and owns 42 head.
But for now he’ll keep climbing on those bulls.
“It’s definitely an adrenalin rush, but it’s not as big a deal as you’d think it is, just because us getting on the back of a bull every weekend is probably like you going skiing on the weekend. It gives you a bit of a rush but it’s kind of routine.
“The biggest thrill of it is when you draw that really good bull that’s out there, that not very many people are able to ride, and you ride him and you get a big score. That’s kind of the hugest deal of it all, kind of like self-fulfillment. All the hard work and the aches and pains, they kind of all go away and you kind of forget about it when that kind of stuff happens. That’s probably the biggest reason for doing this.”
