There are grown men dressed as women. Some are dressed as animals, and others look like fictional or real pop culture icons. This is not a Halloween party -- this is the Red Bluff Wild Ride.

The event is held in addition to the full Red Bluff Round-Up, which just wrapped up its 96th annual three-day rodeo in Red Bluff, CA, this past weekend. Starting in 2000, 12 cowboys have dressed it up and let it rip on the back of a young colt for the wildest of rides. The event started in part to appease a community wanting to see more action out of its annual rodeo. The Round-Up couldn't have imagined the spectacle it would turn into over the years.

Red Bluff was one of the first tour rodeos, and at that time you had to have a short round. The people of Red Bluff saw 12 rides per day, and they felt like they were getting cheated and not seeing enough rodeo. The following year, the Round-Up came up with the Wild Ride, in order to lengthen our show a little bit. With the help of Cotton Rosser, they came up with the idea of a Wild Ride, and the rest is history.

With the addition of the Wild Ride, Red Bluff's Sunday performance has become one of the most action-packed in ProRodeo and routinely provides three hours or more of entertainment. The Red Bluff Round-Up Association is pleased with the life that the Wild Ride has taken on in recent years and is happy to more than satisfy the community's appetite for rodeo.

It has turned into such a fun event for everybody involved. The fans love it. The cowboys love it, and it's really a pretty simple thing if you think about it. They bring in some young colts in, and they are pretty rank horses so it's not necessarily an easy ride.

Every year since 2000, the Wild Ride has taken place on Sunday, the final day of the rodeo. All competitors, wear costumes, which are provided by Haley Didio. She has taken on the duty of making sure the cowboys look as crazy as possible. Didio mixes and matches pieces from local thrift shops to make costumes, and the results are spectacular for the cowboys and fans alike.

When they first started it, the cowboys would go to a Goodwill store and pick up some lingerie and women's clothing to wear. Now, the costumes are topical and reflect what has been in the news that year. And now some of the cowboys call during the year and request to be a certain person or animal for next year. It's a year-long process.

The winner of the event each year wins $1,500 and a new Cactus Saddle valued over $4,000. Second place pays $1,200, while third and fourth pays $750 and $500 respectfully.

In addition to the costumes, other riders shower the competitors with silly string and confetti when they leave the chute, making it for a more bizarre scene.

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The wild ride not only is a hit for the local fans, but it is a hot topic on social media as well.





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