bareback riding

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Last updated

June 22, 2026

Quick Summary

Bareback bronc riding is a rodeo event where a cowboy or cowgirl attempts to ride a bucking horse for eight seconds. The rider uses a leather and rawhide handhold called "rigging" cinched onto the horse, gripping it with only one hand. To begin, the rider must "mark out," meaning their spurs touch a point high on the horse's shoulders before its front feet hit the ground. Disqualification occurs if the rider touches the horse or equipment with their free hand, fails to mark out, or is bucked off before the whistle. Both the horse and rider are scored separately, and the highest total score wins. This event developed in the 1910s and became a standard rodeo event by the 1950s.12

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circus
Equestrian acts
…riders who were champions of bareback riding—the art of performing acrobatic and gymnastic feats on the bare backs of loping horses. James Robinson, a mid-19th-century American, was one such rider. He was billed as “the One Great and Only Hero and Bareback Horseman and Gold Champion-Belted Emperor of All Equestrians.”
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…riders who were champions of bareback riding—the art of performing acrobatic and gymnastic feats on the bare backs of loping horses. James Robinson, a mid-19th-century American, was one such rider. He was billed as “the One Great and Only Hero and Bareback Horseman and Gold Champion-Belted Emperor of All Equestrians.”
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horsemanship
Bareback
Bareback means riding without saddle or blanket, the rider sitting in the hollow of the horse’s back and staying there chiefly by balance. It is an uncomfortable seat but less so at the walk and the slow canter. When suffering from saddle galls horses…
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Bareback means riding without saddle or blanket, the rider sitting in the hollow of the horse’s back and staying there chiefly by balance. It is an uncomfortable seat but less so at the walk and the slow canter. When suffering from saddle galls horses…
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horsemanship
Origins and early history
…who superseded the Scythians, rode bareback, controlling their horses with knee pressure and distribution of the rider’s weight.
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…who superseded the Scythians, rode bareback, controlling their horses with knee pressure and distribution of the rider’s weight.
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