By Jeff Coplon, 1995, Harper-Collins West
![[Book
Cover]](images/gold_buckle.jpg) |
"A successful bull ride is eight seconds in hell
on a ton of murderous fury. To win the gold buckle takes try
-- a cowboy noun for courage, concentration, and sheer
grit -- and lots of it. From its very first sentence, Gold
Buckle vaults you directly into the rider's seat,
swirling through the sights and sounds and heart-pounding
excitement of professional bull riding. With a journalist's keen eye and a novelist's compelling style, Jeff Coplon reveals the private world of the bull rider -- the toughest athlete in the world. Spanning a period of four years, the author travels on the cowboys' do-or-die circuit and meets the moneymen behind the sport, the Hall of Fame riders of the past, and the wives left behind. |
From rodeo's rough origins in the Wild West to Today's high-stakes, neon-glazed National Finals showdown in Las Vegas, Coplon paints a vivid landscape, as much a portrait of the American West as of professional rodeo and the men who personify its tough and mysterious nature. Here are such legendary cowboys as Lane Frost, Tuff Hedeman, Ty Murray, Charles Sampson, Don Gay, Jim Shoulders, and Harry Tompkins. Gold Buckle is their extraordinary tale of riding and dreaming, of bearing out the pain and glory of each victory and defeat. This is their story -- and that of every bull rider who ever reached for the ultimate, gleaming prize."
"Very bold and graphic ... Jeff Coplon tells it like it is." -- Don Gay, eight-time world champion bull rider.
"Gold Buckle carries the kind of feeling and emotion along with the danger and drama that makes bull riding the most explosive eight seconds a person can live. Jeff Coplon has captured the drama, the danger, and the tension that only a bull rider can fully understand. You don't have to be a cowboy or a rodeo fan to enjoy this study of the world's most dangerous sport." -- George Michael, The George Michael Sports Machine
Challenge of the Champions pp.73-74: "The whole course of Lane's [Lane Frost's] life had delivered him to this stage, from the time he was five months old and woke from his nap at San Antonio just in time to watch the bull riding -- and then squalled when Clyde and Elsie Frost tried to beat the crowd by leaving a few bulls early. As Lane would say, I think bull riding was bred into me, like this was all supposed to be.
Lane had it all, but on Red Rock he found himself wanting. The first tilt was set in April, as an exhibition to close Red Bluff's own rodeo. The arena sold out, as it would through the series. The crowd cheered Lane's name, then gave hometown hero Red Rock a standing ovation, and the favorite didn't disappoint them. Lane had ridden earlier in the rodeo proper and scored around ninety, but that was like a home run in batting practice before you stepped in against Roger Clemens. Belying his four-month layoff, Red Rock blasted off to the right, away from Lane's hand, and slammed him in roughly one second.
Tuff, how'm I gonna ride this bull? Lane moaned after the fact.
If he bucks like that, said Tuff, never one to sugarcoat, you ain't.
It went no better a week later in Clovis. Gowney [Owner of Red Rock] was proud of Red Rock, who'd run his knockout streak to 311, but he knew this was poor sport. If Lane kept losing, people would stop caring about the match. As Gowney consoled the rider on their way out of the arena, [Cody] Lambert caught up with them and said, Should I tell him?"
