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4 Red Bluff Daily News — Wednesday, April 19, 2017 DANCE PARTNERS AT THE RED BLUFF ROUND-UP Red Bluff, Calif. (April 3, 2017) – Sometimes at the Red Bluff Round-Up, the glory goes to the cow- boys. But their silent dance partners –the bucking horses and bulls that they ride, to score big points and win big checks, deserve their share of the acco- lades as well. Since half of a bareback rider's, saddle bronc rid- er's, or bull rider's score goes to how well his "draw" - the animal that has been randomly chosen for him to ride – they deserve a bit of the spotlight. e Round-Up hires five different stock con- tractors: the men and women who own the bucking horses and bulls, to be sure that there are plenty of high-quality animals available for the cowboys. ose stock contractors: Growney Bros. and Bridwell Pro Rodeo, Red Bluff; Four Star Rodeo Co., Cottonwood, Calif.; Flying U/Rosser Rodeo Co., Marysville, Calif.; Calgary Stampede, Calgary, Al- berta, and Flying Diamond/Corey and Lange Rodeo, Moses Lake, Wash., bring their best animals to Red Bluff. Here is a snapshot of a few of them. Tim Bridwell has partnered with longtime stock contractor John Growney, and one of his favorite horses will be in Red Bluff. Wild and Blue, a gray mare that has been selected to buck at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (WNFR) the past five years, is a "hometown girl," Bridwell said. e mare was pur- chased from someone in the Red Bluff area, when she was a four-year-old. e thirteen-year-old bare- back horse carried Winn Ratliff to a win in Redding, Calif. last year, and Steven Peebles scored 89 points with her at the Calgary Stampede in 2016. Another one of Bridwell's favorites is a little mare named Gypsy Soul. e fourteen-year-old was purchased from Canada, and even though she's only been to the WNFR a few times, she's special to Brid- well. "She's kind of a cute unassuming little horse," he said. "She's not very big and not very athletic-look- ing, but if you were putting together a football team, she'd be like Rudy, the kid from Notre Dame. She doesn't know she's not the best one, but she tries re- ally, really hard." Seth Hardwick, Tim O'Connell and Wes Stevenson tied for sixth place on Gypsy Soul in Red Bluff in 2015 with 79 points each. Reno Rosser is the second generation of the Rosser family to be involved in the rodeo company, following in the footsteps of his dad Cotton. One of the horses the Rossers will bring to Red Bluff is Lit- tle Red Hawk, a bareback horse that carried Clayton Biglow to a second place finish at last year's Round- Up. Little Red Hawk was raised by the Rosser family and is the daughter of an eight-time WNFR horse, Lady Red Hawk. Little Red Hawk is smaller than the average horse, at about 1,200 lbs., but gentle. "She's very kind," Rosser said, "like a horse in the backyard. You could walk up to her and pet her. I just wouldn't recommend getting on her." Cottonwood, California's Jeff Davis is the own- er of Four Star Rodeo Co., just fieen miles north of Red Bluff, and he will bring a six-year-old bull named Yellow Fever to the Round-Up. Yellow Fever was named as the top bull of the WNFR last year, was the high marked bull at the Ft. Worth (Texas) Stock Show and Rodeo, and threw three-time world champion bull rider Sage Kimzey off at the San An- tonio, Texas Rodeo earlier this spring. He knows his job, Davis said, standing calmly in the chute till the cowboy is ready to ride, then he "explodes out of there, leaps three or four feet in the air, then either fakes to the right or spins to the le. He has no set pattern." Yellow Fever, a yellow bull, was raised in central California. e stock contractor coming the farthest is Cal- gary Stampede, from Calgary, Alberta. Tiger War- rior, a ten-year-old bay stud, is one of the bucking horses the Stampede will bring, said manager Keith Marrington. Tiger Warrior was sired by Grated Co- conut and is out of Fearless Warrior, two horses who have both bucked at the WNFR and the Canadian Finals Rodeo. Tiger Warrior was selected to buck at last year's WNFR and was voted the Saddle Bronc Clayton Biglow rides Little Red Hawk of the Rosser Rodeo string, to a second place finish at the 2016 Red Bluff Round-Up. The horse is gentle, said Reno Rosser, but not so in the rodeo arena. Photo by Hubbell Photography.