Inside the 'terrifying' world of Pro Bull Riding and the extravagant traveling circus that has animal rights activists furious

Standing outside Long Island's UBS Arena hours before the start of Professional Bull Riders' Maverick Days, it was not clear that an extravagant traveling circus was being set up inside the home of hockey's New York Islanders.

To those in the know, the greatest cowboys in the world inside those doors were ready to dazzle under the spectacle of staying on a bull - and not just for large sums of money. 

They're all fighting for something bigger than themselves, with team colors on display as they yelled for each other to weather the storm the behemoth animals put them through. 

Every Western athlete understands the supreme danger that could await any rider eight seconds at a time, as the site of EMTs and a stretcher are within feet of the bucking chutes that unleash the man-versus-beast battle. 

Yet, at the heart of PBR, and all rodeo sports, are the animals, and specifically how they're treated, both in front of an audience and when all of the glitz and glamor goes away. 

The sport's leaders say the bulls are 'treated like kings', while animal-rights organizations claim the competitions are 'terrifying and often deadly.' An inside look into the mad world of pro bull riding shows the battle is far from only on the dirt. 

Every single bull and rider competing in the PBR team series has trained for nearly their entire lives to stay on top of elite animal athletes or - conversely - to eject a human being from its back. 

Impressing was a bull named Magic Potion, who improved to a perfect 57-0 in his career by bucking off Austin Gamblers star Andrei Scoparo. 

His teammate, current reigning PBR World Champion Jose Vitor Leme, stayed atop Wicked In a Winning Way for one of the highest scores of the festivities, an 88.5. 

'Any bull rider that says they ain't scared, they're just lying to you. I still get scared all the time,' New York Mavericks dynamo Mason Taylor told the Daily Mail. 

'Whenever I'm nervous, I've learned how to kind of turn that into adrenaline and aggression. The more nervous I get, the more aggressive I get.'

A PBR official told Daily Mail successful 8-second rides increase from around 30 percent in the individual circuit, to near 40 percent in the team series. 

Even with the pageantry of the PBR, several athletes, and even a cameraman, had to be checkout by medical professionals after the bulls unleashed their fury.  

'The incidents of animals getting hurt is actually really, really small. The animals are, truth be told, the kings of the sport,' stated Chad Blankenship, who is currently the president and general manager of the Texas Rattlers. Blankenship was previously a senior vice president with PBR.

A PETA spokesperson told Daily Mail animals used in rodeos are excluded from the federal Animal Welfare Act’s protection, and every national animal protection organization opposes these events. 

Multiple PBR officials and cattle owners rebuked that animals are intentionally put in harms' way, including that the bulls' testicles are jostled in any way.

They doubled down by saying the bulls are treated better than the riders, adding life as a professional rodeo bull saves the animal from a horrific death, allowing them to pass away from natural causes at as old as 20.  

In comments to the Los Angeles City Council, which unanimously voted to ban rodeos in America's second-biggest city in December 2023, PBR leadership citied cattle being led to the slaughterhouse at age 3. 

An April 2024 story from the Washington Post claims the age is half that, at 18 months, for when cattle are slain with the intention of human consumption. 

On occasion, PBR-level bulls are 4 years old, but rookie animal athletes are more common at 5. 

'When they are little tiny guys on the ranch, that's where you start treating them like kings,' said stock contractor Staci Addison-Julian, co-owner of Julian Cattle Company in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. 

'So, in their long life of getting on and off of a trailer, laying down in different pens, traveling all over America, they're comfortable.' 

Bull owners provide their cattle with massages, acupuncture, and chiropractic care, testing their feed on a regular basis for the best quality of life. 

A less scientific tactic from Addison-Julian is lying down next to members of her cattle and singing 'You Are My Sunshine'. 

PBR and PETA officials appear to have true common ground, with their care for animals being at the forefront of each cause. How they respectively display that nurture directly clashes. 

PETA claims that at rodeo animals who are normally docile are deliberately provoked into displaying 'wild' behavior, often sustaining agonizing and even fatal injuries.  

The animal-rights organization also states rodeos are also a public safety hazard. Last year, five people were hospitalized when a bull fled from an arena in Oregon. In September 2024, eight bulls also escaped a rodeo in Massachusetts and charged through a crowded parking lot. 

'Rodeos are terrifying and often deadly to their animal victims, who are zapped with electric prods, viciously spurred into bucking, and violently slammed to the ground as they scramble to escape from the humans tormenting them,' a PETA spokesperson told Daily Mail. 'PETA urges the public to avoid these egregious displays of animal abuse as if lives depend on it, because they do.'

A PBR official countered that electric prods are never used to provoke genetically predisposed bulls into competition and they are banned from the bucking chutes. The use of electric prods for PBR events is strictly limited to back-pen situations. 

The PETA spokesperson told Daily Mail that being in contact with PBR to attempt to make the sport safer from their viewpoint would be 'like asking tobacco companies to make cigarettes safer - it’s not possible.'

Public interest in PBR is rising with an increase of more than 4,000 fans attending this year's event compared to 2024's in Brooklyn. 

Investors are starting to pay attention as well, with PBR garnering high-profile names like NASCAR owner Richard Childress, who co-owns the Carolina Cowboys. 

Former NBA team owner Marc Lasry, who was at the helm of the Milwaukee Bucks from 2014 until 2023, owns the Mavericks and was seen walking around UBS Arena during his team's home event.

Multiple sources told Daily Mail initial talks have begun about what the team series would look like after a second expansion beyond 10 teams.  

In the fourth season of the team series, PBR is hoping that adding a team aspect to the sport will eventually boom its popularity and help gain traction with a mainstream audience, with TV deals with the CW Network and Fox Nation already under its belt. 

After its stop in New York, the team series posted up in Fort Worth before heading to Kansas City for the penultimate weekend of the regular season. 

Those within the Kansas City Outlaws organization know the opportunity in front of them to build a core fanbase, including adding Kansas City Chiefs' center Creed Humphrey as the team's chief brand ambassador. 

'He comes down to training camp. He speaks to the guys on a weekly basis. He comes to the home event, and he really preaches to the Kansas City Market what this is all about,' the Outlaws' chief marketing officer, Nicole Capolino, said.

Capolino herself is not from a Midwestern state, she grew up under 20 miles away from UBS Arena in Levittown, New York. 

'I'm not from the Western lifestyle. I had no idea humans rode bulls until later in my life. There is a level of passion and commitment and drive and energy and all of those things that you find in mainstream sports,' she said. 

'And I came from mainstream sports, it's amplified in this sport. And there's just something that that pushes it to the edge that really makes it special.'

Before joining the Outlaws, Capolino worked in the name, image, and likeness space, specifically with the University of Kansas men's basketball team.  

The Jayhawks are as blueblood as there is in college basketball, with Capolino seeing firsthand the end result of mainstream popularity. 

'I think something that gets overlooked is the work ethic and the training that goes into riding bulls is the same as it goes into (KU head coach) Bill Self's basketball camp,' Capolino said. 

'I've been in Bill Self's basketball camp. I've been at (Outlaws head coach) JW Hart's bull riding training camp. And I can assure you that players on both sides are throwing up, they're working hard, they're running sprints, they're lifting weights, they're doing all those things to keep their bodies in prime position to be the best physical athlete that they can be.'

PBR also has to balance keeping its diehard fans satisfied, while bringing in a new audience, with one avenue being the head coaches of the 10 league teams. 

The accomplished group of leaders include former world champions Justin McBride, Kody Lostroh, and JB Mauney. Lostroh, 40, is the head coach of the Mavericks. 

The 2009 PBR World Champion is tasked to help the new generation of riders, and in turn, win over who Lostroh feels are some of the best sports fans in the country in the Tri-State Area.

'I think people enjoy the sport because it's such raw, intense energy and such real authenticity as well,' Lostroh continued. 'You can't fake this. You can't fake how rough it is, how dangerous it is, how courageous these guys are. I think people are drawn to that. It's something that you don't get to see every day. 

'You're outmatched in every way imaginable and to still come out on top and be victorious, it's really intense, it's a really cool feeling.'

Over the guardrails, those being introduced to the sport have Lostroh's message ring true.

The dangers of the sport are obvious to most, including on Friday's Maverick Days event where Kansas City's Jeferson Silva and and Arizona Ridge Riders star Keyshawn Whitehorse were both taken off the dirt on backboards from consecutive rides. 

Both riders, somehow, were both walking and talking without help by the end of Day 2 of the showcase.  

'I just think it's incredible how these the bulls weigh 1800 pounds, and the riders can stay on there for eight seconds,' said PBR fan Luca Khanamirian, 15, of Huntington, New York. 

'They're jumping three feet in the air, in some cases, even higher, and it's crazy. I just think it's one of the most athletic sports.'