Cowboy hats, sand, lassos and salt: First-ever rodeo performed on Virginia Beach Oceanfront

Organizers spent 48 hours leading up to the show soaking the sand inside an Oceanfront ring with a nonstop spray of water — the wetter the sand, the harder it could be packed. Bulls can jump higher on harder ground, and, showman logic dictates: the higher bulls jump, the better the show.

And on Saturday, the 1,500-plus pound behemoths bucked high and hard against a backdrop of boats and bathing suits.

The two-day Bulls and Barrels Beach Rodeo was sold out with a total of 3,800 tickets purchased by rodeo-goers across the Saturday and Sunday shows in Virginia Beach.

Eight bleacher towers surrounded a bullring on the beach in full view of crashing waves.

Some of day’s steersmen were from Texas. At least one was from Indiana.

When Varnei Junior took his turn on top of a 2,000 pound bull, the announcer introduced him as the “Brazil Bull Rider.”

His bull darted out of the gate with back legs flying. Varnei straddled his back and clung on, and the bull continued to thrash its horns left and right, right to left, even after unseating Varnei and a lasso was swung over his head. The bull kept an angry bearing on its way back to the corral.

Before each ride, a bull was placed in a bull pen. They fit snuggly between the rectangular steel walls. Each cowboy mounted the bull by climbing the 7-foot walls and lowering himself onto the animal.

A bull, named Wolf Ticket, burst out of the gate with Cody West clinging to his back. Despite the animal’s forceful verve, West managed a stay aboard for an entire 8 seconds before landing on his feet with one of the best rides of the day, at a score of 83.5 on a 100 point scale.

While there are several professional bull riding leagues, the Bulls and Barrels Beach Rodeo was a Southern Extreme Bull Riding Association (SEBRA) sanctioned contest.

The 20 riders who competed were there for more than just entertaining the crowds. Each day’s top-three, highest-scoring bull riders earned prize money and league points, getting them a step closer to qualifying for the SEBRA 2023 bull riding season’s national championship.

Some of the riders opted to wear protective helmets or padded vests, but not Austin Beaty. He chose blue sunglasses and a simple, thin black leather vest for his ride in the ring.

Beaty entered the competition as the top ranked SEBRA rider in the country. The 31-year-old from Bedford grew up showing horses until he turned 12 and got bored with slow trotting and prancing ponies.

“I told my mom I was going to ride bulls,” Beaty said.

As a preteen he sold his PlayStation and hawked raffle tickets at the local rodeo to save up for bull riding classes. He got good. However, instead of turning pro as a teenager, he joined the U.S. Army at 17, became a sniper and served multiple tours in the Middle East.

“And after my second deployment, I came home at 26 years old, and I said, ‘This is it,” Beaty recalled. He wanted back in the bull ring and vowed to devote all of his free time to learning the craft.

In the middle of a transition from active duty to the National Guard, Beaty is now a full time professional bull rider. He trains all week long for his next weekend rodeo, working on technique and physical conditioning.

“I take the athlete approach to it, as opposed to just this mellow-cowboy mentality where I’m smoking cigarettes and drinking beer in the back pens,” he said.

On the other side of the bleachers Saturday, the Virignia Beach 4H Club showed off animals not far from a mechanical bull, for anyone who dared to stand in line and try a ride. And inside the show grounds, there was more than just bull riding.

Cowgirls performed barrel races and to the delight of the audience, small children held onto the backs of running sheep, as if they were bull riders, in-between the main acts.

But the fans seemed to be waiting for Beaty.

When the gate finally flung open and heand his bull flew out of the pen, the cowboy fell to the dirt far short of the 8 second mark. Neither a trophy nor cash prize would result from the ride.

But that’s the life of a bull rider.

He stood up and walked out of the ring. The cowboy knew he wasn’t hurt. The animal wasn’t injured. He’d get to ride again the next day.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8139, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com