PUEBLO, Colo. (September 10, 2008) - Next year the PBR is taking the World Cup to Barretos, SP, Brazil.
An agreement was worked out with Os Independentes Club, the promoter of the Barretos International Rodeo. The 2009 World Cup will be held in conjunction with the acclaimed event.
The Barretos event is the largest bull riding event in all of Brazil, drawing in excess of 80,000 attendees per night over the course of 10-days. Next year’s rodeo in Barretos will be held from August 20-30, with the World Cup taking place the last three days.
Quirt Hunt, a American bullfighter PBR fans may recognize from the Team Shootout on ESPN2 and his regular work at various Challenger events, returned to the States just last week after attending this year’s Barretos International Rodeo.
Hunt was one of two American bullfighters who traveled to Barretos, and just yesterday he shared his “once-in-a-lifetime experience” with pbrnow.com in effort to give PBR fans an idea of what to expect next year.
Question: Have you been to Brazil before this trip?
Answer: No, this was my first trip.
Q: What expectations did you have?
A: I really didn’t have any expectations. I kind of kept an open mind about it. I really didn’t know what would be going on or nothing. I had no idea what it was going to be like. I never had, I had seen pictures of Brazil in a magazine, but that was about it. I really didn’t have any idea what it was going to be like.
Q: What did you know about the event before you went there?
A: It’s an international rodeo and I thought it was just bull riding. I got down there and, (heck), it was a whole rodeo and everything. I mean, I had no idea.
Q: So what did you think when you got down there and realized the whole festival draws 100,000 or more people every day?
A: It was outrageous. I had never seen anything like it. It was unreal. I had never seen anything like it before and I don’t think I ever will – the authenticity of the fans. Everybody got into it. They had like ten announcers.
Q: Really.
A: Yeah, Keith, they had like ten announcers and they would be all getting pumped up. They would be right down there on the arena floor during the bull riding and they’d be hollering into that microphone. I was taking it all in and thinking what the (heck). It was wild. They would have every single person in that stadium clapping their hands, doing chants – these certain songs everyone knew – they were getting into it, drinking and just having a good time.
Q: You found the fans to be very knowledgeable.
A: Oh yeah, not just the bull riding but the whole rodeo. Those people got into the whole show and those shows went on forever. Those (things) would start early and they wouldn’t get over until late and everybody stayed. That last day was the short round and they started it at 2 o’clock and by the time they got completely done with it it was like 9 o’clock. They can draw one out, but, I mean, everybody’s there. They don’t leave. Everybody stays for the whole deal. It was wild.
Q: So, tell me, is the arena right in the middle of the festival or is it away from it and just promoted as being part of the entire festivities?
A: That arena sits, it’s in a big ol’ hole—
Q: I read that it holds 84,000.
A: Yeah, it sits in a big hole and the arena floor is at the bottom of it. Like, if it rained you’d drown in that (thing) because it would probably fill up. It was a big (arena). All the way around there was a carnival, places to eat, things to do, rides, shopping – you could go buy boots and all sorts of (stuff). There was just stuff everywhere. Then, right there, in the center of the event. The night that they had it completely packed they had people standing around the rim of it all the way around. You couldn’t believe it. It was pretty unreal.
Q: With that much going on was it like sensory overload?
A: They way they had it set up for us to stay they kept us about an hour from there in Olympia. I guess that’s where Paulo Crimber grew up. We stayed out there and so they would shuttle us in and then they would shuttle us out. By the time we would get there it would be about 20 minutes before the rodeo, usually, and we’d get ready. They’d have slack bull riding going right into what we would call the grand entry. They’d bring us out, all the bullfighters in the middle, and all the horses and stuff would post the colors. Then all bull riders and the rest of the guys, all of the contestants, and then the judges would come in right in front of the bucking chutes and stand. Then they’d do the anthems like Italy, France and Canada and then they’d do Brazil. They did everybody’s. One night they had an orchestra there, but most of the time they’d just let it play off of a recorder and then they’d have some gal come in there and sing “Marie,” which would be like “Mary mother of Christ.” When that got all over they’d start with bull riding again and go into team penning. They’d buck bulls, do the grand entry and they’d buck bulls again. Then they’d do all the other events and finish with bull riding. There were like 65 rides a night, but (heck) they had like nine bullfighters.
Q: I talked with Cord McCoy one time, and he went to a bull riding down there once before and said it was so loud that he couldn’t hear the whistle, so he’d count to 10 in his head to make sure he rode for 8 seconds and then just jump off.
A: I believe it. There were times I would just count to myself – I do that a lot anyway – to make sure I get there not too early or not too late, but, yeah, the speaker system they have there is so loud and it’s right above the bucking chute. They buck on both ends. I guess it’s the south end they have the concert and I mean it is the loudest I’ve ever been at. Them speakers is as tall as, I don’t know, but they went clear to the top of that (darn) scaffolding. And they would crank that music and they crank it when them announcers would get to jabbering and stuff. It was loud. It was unbelievable.
Q: He said the other thing was that you never quite knew what time the actual bull riding would start because they would throw a party first. Then all of a sudden they would say they were going to start bucking bulls.
A: Yeah. It was hard to get an exact time as to when anything was going to get started down there. You’d ask around and somebody would say 5 and somebody else would say 6. You just want to be there in plenty of time because you had no idea when that (event) was going to start. That’s the day of the short round I asked and somebody said 1, somebody said 2, and somebody said 3. Nobody knew. Finally I asked one of the main guys and he said they have the junior bull riding at 2 and our deal starts at 3, but we really won’t get started until 4. It was nuts.
Q: Having experienced it firsthand this year, what will an event like this mean for the PBR to be a part of it next year?
A: I think it’ll be cool. I think it’ll be great for the PBR. It’ll be unreal and them guys will have never seen anything like it. Well, I’ve never seen anything like it but a lot of them guys get out a lot more than I do. But I guarantee you they will be amazed.
Q: Adriano told me that with the PBR there he expects the festival to draw as much as 150,000 per day, which means it’ll eclipse 1.5 million attendees.
A: Oh, I don’t doubt that a bit. It’ll be so unreal for those guys who are going to go down there and ride because they’ll never see anything like it again, I don’t think. The way those people get into it. I talked to Ty (Murray) about it a little bit when we were in Chihuahua (Mexico) and he told me a little bit about it, but for somebody to tell you what you’re going to see and then seeing it is two different things. It’s a wild event. Everybody’s having fun.
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