When my wife and I moved to Camrose, Alberta a few years ago, we had never been to a rodeo. We toyed with the idea a few times. After all, there was a major annual rodeo in Cloverdale, BC, not that far from where we lived in Abbotsford. Now that we were fledgling Albertans, maybe we’d go for the big dog some day, the Calgary Stampede.
None of this was really on our mind when we moved in on May 15, 2023. But one day we noticed a pickup truck parked on the street near our house. It had one of those advertising wraps you sometimes see on cars and trucks. And in big letters accompanied by action pictures of a man riding a bull we read “Coy Robbins – Professional Bull Rider.” The truck we discovered, belonged to our next door neighbor, Coy Robbins. And yes, this twenty-something young man is a professional bull rider!
Coy has been riding professionally since 2017 and is ranked in the Top 10 in Canada. Bull Riding in Canada is managed by the Professional Bull Riders, Inc. (PBR) which also operates in the United States, Australia and Brazil. PBR Canada organizes events across Canada, though mostly in the western provinces. A proud resident of Camrose, Coy decided to organize an annual PBR event in his home town, the Rose City Invitational, in 2022. It has sold out every year, attracting fans from across Canada and participants from around the world.
We got to know Coy, his partner Brooke and our other neighbors. So naturally, my wife and I as well as some of our neighbors, attended the Rose City Invitational in 2024 and again in 2025. And an event it is! A combination of pyrotechnics, thundering action, an entertaining MC and a dance party with band until the wee hours after the event, there’s something for everyone.
There are good number of crew working to manage a bull riding event. Wranglers behind the scenes get the bulls from the holding pens into the chutes. Others help the rider mount the bull and prepare him for the ride. The bulls can get quite cantankerous while still in the chute and the gate is opened only after the rider gives the go ahead. Then a cowpoke pulls the gate open and the bull is released.
The objective of the rider is to stay on the bull for eight seconds. If he is bucked off, he scores zero. But it’s not just a matter of staying on the bull. The ride is scored by judges, just like figure skating or gymnastics or any other skill competition. There are two components to a rider’s score—the performance of the rider, of course, but also the performance of the bull.
The bulls are specially bred to be buckers. But even a bull can have an off-day and turn in a lack-luster performance. So the difference between winning a competition and coming in second can, in the scheme of things, depend on the bull. If a score is on the low side because of a poor showing by the bull, the rider can relinquish his score and ride again. But he then faces the possibility of getting thrown and getting no score at all.
After the first round, the top ten competitors go into the final round. Scores are cumulative—your score in the first round and your score in the second round.
After a rider is thrown, the bulls often keep on bucking and kicking so three bull fighters are there to get the man to safety. The three keep a constant ring around the bull and when the rider is thrown, two distract the bull and draw him away from the rider while the third gets between the bull and the fallen rider.
There’s also a cowboy on horseback with a lasso to wrangle the bull and get him off the field if necessary.
The video below shows a successful ride from the 2024 Rose City Invitational. Note the action of the bull fighters as well as the wrangler on horseback.
Every bull riding event has an entertainer: part cheerleader, part comedian, part master of ceremonies. The entertainer keeps the crowd pumped up, leading them in sing-alongs, engaging them in contests and handing out prizes. One of the prizes each year is tickets to the PBR Finals in Edmonton in November. To win those tickets, the entertainer has audience members pretend to ride a bull, hanging on to a make believe rope and waving the other in the air as you buck around. Watching all the would be bull riders, he picks two from the audience he thinks are the most enthusiastic. Then he has the two finalists do it again, followed by an audience vote by applause to select the winner.
Always an enthusiast for participating in things like this, much to my wife’s chagrin, I stood up and did my thing at the 2024 event. And I won! Two tickets worth around $600. My wife and I made a day of it in Edmonton, staying overnight in a hotel connected to Edmonton’s Rogers Arena by various passages. It was terrific fun. In the video below, a promotional video for the 2025 Rose City Invitational, I was surprised to see they cut a short clip of yours truly into it. A very short clip about 26 second in.
In 2025 my wife was in Australia and I went with my sister-in-law Betty. I did not try out that year but a little old lady won the tickets. And a young girl of maybe 10 won the $500 gift certificate for western gear from Lammle’s, which prompted Betty to comment that you had to be either very young or very old to win at these things!
I can’t leave this discussion without mentioning the Shark Cage. At center left of the arena is a metal cage where VIP guests can see the action up close and personal. My wife and I and Betty were only three rows from the front at the 2024 event and sometimes, after throwing a rider, the bull would stampede right in front of us. Didn’t catch it on video unfortunately. The picture below captures the a rider thrown just in front of the Shark Cage.
Then entertainer often gives his spiel from atop the Shark Cage. The picture below shows how high these bulls can kick. Seems for half the ride all four of the beast’s hooves are off the ground.
The arena is a hockey rink in the winter and even through most of the summer, but for the bull riding they bring in truckloads of dirt to fill half the floor. And they add all the gates and chutes and other paraphernalia of course. The other half of the arena floor is set off for the post-rodeo dance party. Always a terrific band. This event costs extra and is very popular with the younger crowd.
The 2026 Rose City Invitational is on May 9th at the Encana Arena. We’ll be there along with some of our neighbors to cheer Coy on. He’s #2 in the Canadian standings for this year. Should be quite the event. I’ll be adding a Photo Gallery of this year’s event later.
Link of Interest
I didn’t get a good video of Coy riding at the events I attended so here’s one from 2023 in Regina where he scored an impressive 90.5 points.