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‘The Bad Bulls’ are back in town
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Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
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0 responses 0 comments “I’m just an adrenaline junkie, I guess,” admits 25 year old Tehachapi resident, Aaron Orndorff.

The 6-foot-1-inch athlete surprised many when he decided to pursue the sport of bull riding, both on the college and Pro-Am circuits, after 14 years of playing competitive football.

“Everyone told me I was too big and tall, and too bulky,” he said. “Now they just tell me I’m too tall. I just have a higher center of gravity.”

The former football player and full-time construction operations manager said it was a challenge to trim down to a more suitable “riding shape.”

“It’s a 180-degree switch in the training regimen,” said Orndorff, who went from 235 to 185 pounds.

How did he do it?

“I stopped eating,” he joked, adding that he adjusted his workouts to focus on strengthening his overall cardio fitness.

When asked how that very first ride went, Orndorff responded, “I don’t want to talk about it,” adding that it took him three or four months of attempting to “get on” twice a week, before he felt comfortable enough to compete.

In spite of feeling “kind of rusty” since recently leaving the bull riding circuit, Orndorff said he’s excited to compete again in Tehachapi’s Fourth of July Bad Bulls competition. His last “go round” in Tehachapi was two years ago.

“The more you get on, the slower time goes and the more comfortable you are,” he said of all the preparation that goes into the eight second goal that many riders never achieve during competition. Orndorff said that a lot also depends on the bull.

“For every movement there’s an equal and opposite counter move,” he said. “It takes the whole mental element. It’s not so much a muscle event as it is a finesse event. It takes a lot of little moves.”

Although his dad grew up on a farm, he’s the first one in his family to be bitten by the rodeo bug. None too pleased with his son’s new adventures, his dad bought him a hockey helmet and asked him to wear it when he rides.

At first, the lanky young bull rider wore the helmet grudgingly. But it wasn’t long before he took a pretty rough tumble, with the one-ton bull coming out on top. The result was a deeply gouged hoof-shaped scrape that ran down the right side of his handy new headgear.

“That probably would have been my ear,” Orndorff said, adding that he’s used to wearing a helmet for football. “I’ve never gotten on a bull without it since then.”

His parents aren’t the only ones who aren’t totally pleased about Orndorff’s chosen hobby.

Although she stands by her man, Orndorff said his girlfriend, a Cal Poly student who plans to move to Tehachapi next fall, teases him that bull riding is the last event of the rodeo for a reason —  “Bareback riding is first and bull riding is last so that people can come late and leave early” — she reportedly chides her cowboy, while she worries about him getting hurt.

“I was doing this when I met you. You knew this job was dangerous when you took it,” responds the adrenaline junkie cowboy.

Ironically, Orndorff said he has sustained more injuries playing football than the few he attributes to bull riding.

“I’ve had a couple of concussions,” he said, continuing on to describe something he calls “compartment syndrome,” something that he said happens when a contusion causes such severe swelling that it cuts off circulation to the extremities.

“It doesn’t feel too good. I’ve seen guys have to cut it open and let it bleed.”

Orndorff said that pain is an inevitable part of the sport, regardless of your conditioning or skill level.

“Even if you’re doing well your groin is going to be sore,” he said. Cold weather is the worst. “When it’s cold, whether you ride well or not, your hands are numb afterwards.”

Orndorff said he enjoys riding horses with his girlfriend, but bull riding is the only rodeo event that interests him.

“I didn’t have any connections and I had never been on a bull, it was just always something I wanted to do,” he said. “I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.”
Orndorff said his current responsibilities don’t leave him with the time to return to the circuit, although he misses the camaraderie.

“It’s not really a team sport but it’s a team sport outside the arena,” he said.
Still, he loves to ride and he hopes to show the Bad Bulls who’s boss on July 4.

“I don’t pretend to be the best bull rider in the world. I go out there to get on to have a successful ride and have some fun doing it,” he said. As for prize money and fame, “That’s all secondary to me.”

The Bad Bulls are back and bucking for the seventh year
Town & Country Real Estate, in conjunction with the Tehachapi Mountain Rodeo Association, are excited to announce that “The Bad Bulls” will be back in town for the seventh year, at Tehachapi’s Fourth of July Rodeo event. Cowboys from around the country will be competing for prize money and the thrill of hanging on to 2,000 pounds of angry bucking beast for an eight second ride.

Local businesses have also helped to sponsor individual bulls, giving them their own special “nicknames,” such as All American Construction’s, “Dozer” and Commonwealth Title’s “No Bull Closing,” and Hemme Hay & Feed’s own “Herminator.” Other nicknames include “Sir Loin,” bucking for the Keene Cafe, and DeWayne and Linda Clough’s “Big Bucks Briscoe” and “Copenhagen Colton.”

Bring the whole family out to the rodeo grounds and watch the white-knuckle excitement as some cowboy’s bound to get a rockin’ eight second ride on ‘Hatchapi Tees’ “Van Halen,” the bull.

Tehachapi’s rodeo grounds are located off Dennison Road behind the Tehachapi Airport. Gates open at 5 p.m. and the first bull bucks out of the gates at 6 p.m. Stick around for the city’s firework display after the rodeo event, starting at 9 p.m.

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