Cross over the line: The woman in the arena

Sitting on top of the wooden bleachers, looking west onto the freshly groomed arena with her long blonde hair blowing in the wind, bull rider Brianna Vander Meer reflects on a young rodeo career.

“I was terrified every time I got on the bull, absolutely terrified… why did I sign up for this? Why am I doing this? Who forced me here? But then you get on anyway,” Vander Meer said.

It’s Saturday night in Alden — a farm community east of Buffalo with a population of 10,000. Approaching the village from the west, down Highway 20, there’s a Tops gas station and a day care, followed by Evergreen Cemetery and American Legion Post 1377. Further up, City Hall shares space with the village courts and a volunteer fire station. A video board out front advertises a “Pallet of Beer Raffle.” Along a side street, a “Billieve” flag flies near another declaring “God, Guns & Trump.” On the last street before Highway 20 rolls out of town to the east is the Alden Community Church — and every Saturday summer night in the church’s front yard, it’s rodeo time.

It starts with a prayer, crackling out over a loudspeaker. A few hundred people assembled in wooden bleachers look up toward the announcing booth, golden sunshine on their faces. Several American flags flap in a stiff breeze.

“Our Gracious and Heavenly Father, we come before you today and first of all, thank you…”

The prayer continues, thanking God for beautiful Saturday Sunshine, thanking Him for a chance to gather with friends and family, asking that the livestock perform their best and that the men and women of the armed forces return home; and “Father God, would you keep all our cowboys and cowgirls safe from harm’s way…”?

Cowboys and cowgirls.

Loading into the chutes are 4 bareback bronc riders, 4 saddle bronc riders, and 23 bull riders, 29 different men and one woman.

The lone woman is bull rider Vander Meer, a 22 year old native of Ontario, Canada. Since she started riding bulls three years ago, she’s often the only woman competing.

Vander Meer said a rodeo company came to her family’s horse farm in Canada. As she watched the bull riders compete, she thought, “OK, these guys make it look way too hard. Like, it’s got to be way easier than this.”

She got on a bull at a practice session and has never looked back.

“I never thought of my granddaughter as a bull rider,” said Vander Meer’s grandmother, known affectionately as Gram. She makes the trip every Saturday from her home in Buffalo, proudly wearing her “My Granddaughter is a Champion Bull Rider” T-shirt.

“When she was 15, she was a hunter-jumper. There’s a family joke she’s not comfortable without a 1,000-pound animal beneath her,” Gram said.

Despite the risks associated with “the most dangerous sport on earth,” Gram doesn’t worry about her granddaughter, saying that Vander Meer “has a good head on her shoulders.”

Vander Meer knows those risks all too well. During a San Francisco rodeo — an event she ironically won — Vander Meer broke her back during a ride. The bull rider said she woke up in the ambulance, and, as a Canadian fearing an American medical bill, got them to drop her off on the way to the hospital. She then caught her flight back to Buffalo.

“I remember waking up in the ambulance ’cause I got knocked out and carried outta the arena. Because I’m Canadian, I was like, ‘uh, you guys aren’t taking me to the hospital. I’m not paying this fee. Plus, I gotta get on a plane in two hours.’ And I was alone,” Vander Meer said.

“I don’t remember anything until landing in Buffalo,” she said while pulling up a video — a bullfighter scooping up her limp body up in his arms and rushing out of the arena.

Breaking her back was a turning point for Vander Meer. She now takes the sport more seriously, going to the gym and stretching in the hopes of avoiding another injury.

“One of the hardest parts is getting injured and getting back … you know what could happen, you could be lying in a hospital bed tomorrow,” Vander Meer added.

The risks were on display in Alden, where bareback rider Mason Gonzalez broke his eye socket and bull rider Calvin Bell was knocked unconscious before he was taken out on a neck board by EMTs. Similar to Vander Meer’s injury, bullfighter Wayne Parker leapt onto Bell’s unconscious body and took a direct hit from a charging bull — likely saving Bell from more serious injury.

Vander Meer also suffered some indignity at rodeo’s hands. Going down from the back of bull “Tighty Whitey” in just a few moments, she was shaken up and annoyed at her own performance.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a champion bull rider,” producer Louis Backlas said over the loudspeaker. “But sometimes bulls don’t read the resume.”

After climbing out of the arena, Vander Meer said her head wasn’t in it.

“I ride better when I’m pissed off, I was in too good a mood,” she said.

Going forward, Vander Meer said she would love to be a full-time rodeo cowboy but there aren’t many opportunities in the sport for women. The highest level of bull riding, Professional Bull Riding’s “Beat the Beast” tour, doesn’t include women. The bulls are just to “rank,” Vander Meer said.

“As much as I hate to say it, girls are not as strong as guys … there are some girls out there that ride the guy’s bulls and do a great job at it, but even they’ll tell you they don’t get on anything the level of caliber that most girls do,” she said, “It’s scientifically proven that women don’t have the same muscle mass.”

Vander Meer added she is just starting to see some ranker bulls herself — graduating from tamer “jump-kickers” to more fearsome “spinners.” Vander Meer said she does have an opportunity to compete as a pro in Texas as A member of an newly founded organization, Elite Lady Bull Riders. She was the 2024 ELBR novice division champion.

Despite the challenges, Vander Meer said she thinks the future of women’s bull riding is bright. With more women getting into the sport, she’s started to connect with other riders all over the world.

“It’s a pretty cool community … there’s no one like us. We’re all crazy,” Vander Meer said.

She also includes that the community around the Alden rodeo, both men and women, is incredibly supportive of her. She especially highlights owner Louis Backlas as a supporter of women’s bull riding.

“A lot of rodeos don’t like letting women ride, they think it’s for the guys. This is pretty much the only place that’s been completely welcoming to me … Louis and his mom and our normal rodeo crew have become like family to me,” Vander Meer said

After the rodeo, and after lining up all the bull riders he could find to sign a young fan’s program, Backlas agrees the rodeo is a family, “maybe not by blood, but definitely by heart.”

“God comes first; family second; country third. That’s our main slogan,” Backlas said. “And I say family operated by me and my mom, but like everybody — Brianna, all the boys, everybody that comes, we’re all family. We all love each other, and we take care of ’em as best we can. It’s a big family operation.”

Before the dust and blood of the rodeo, before the fans arrived or the bulls got wild, Vander Meer sat on wooden bleachers and surveyed a freshly dragged arena, summing up what keeps her riding bulls in just six words.

“Here is where my people are.”