TOPEKA (KSNT) - While some people are getting ready to bring in the new year with champaign, others are bringing it in with bull riding.
Tuesday night, on New Years Eve, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) Xtreme Bulls took over Landon Arena at the Stormont Vail Events Center in Central Topeka. The event consisted of the top 40 bull riders in the PRCA along with 62 bulls. After each bull rider takes their turn riding, the top 10 returned at a chance to take the title. Just like the athletes riding the bulls, the bulls are athletes of their own.
These bulls typically get their career started when they are three to four years old, and stay in their prime until eight or nine years old.
"We bring pretty athletic bulls that we raise on our ranch," Stock Contractor Chad Berger said. "I got a ranch in North Dakota, one in Oklahoma, summer up there, Winter down here, so they're always in good shape. I look for a lot of great rides tonight and a lot of great wrecks."
While people around the country are counting down to 2025, these bull riders are counting up to eight.
"There's definitely different eight seconds. There's a quick eight seconds and there's a long eight seconds," Bull Rider Wyatt Rogers said. "It kind of depend on how the bulls doing and how you're gelling with him. It's like a dance. The bull leads and I gotta follow and you get out of timing it can be a long eight seconds."
While bull riding can be intense, and be stressful, Berger told 27 News that these bulls are built for the sport, and that there's no animal treated better than them.
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