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Cowboy's Back In The Saddle

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By GEOFF FOX

gfox@tampatrib.com

Published: February 20, 2009

SAN ANTONIO - The chute opened, and Bob Barthle's horse chased after the steer.

The cowboy could hear the crowd at the Green Cove Springs rodeo cheering.

In seconds, it was time to jump, as Barthle, then 47, had done countless times before.

This time, though, the steer unexpectedly cut in front of the horse. Barthle went flying.

His skull broke the landing.

"I had to ride to the hospital in an ambulance," said Barthle, now 51. "I had some bulging discs in my neck and had to go through therapy for a couple of months."

He downplays it - and his injuries - but Barthle knows he's lucky.

"I saw a guy in Cheyenne, Wyo., that that happened to one year," he said. "He broke his neck, and he's paralyzed."

That was four years ago. Barthle hasn't competed since.

A third-generation San Antonio native, the cattle rancher once aspired to compete in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association national championship, televised every year in Las Vegas.

A hard-traveling cowboy, he competed in about 40 events a year, all over the United States and Canada. He never made it to the PRCA nationals, but he was good enough to qualify for the PRCA circuit finals, a regional competition, more than 20 times.

This weekend, Bartle will compete for the first time since Green Cove Springs at the Pasco County Fair Championship Rodeo, once again leaping from a speeding horse onto a 500-pound steer. His family - especially his wife, ReVae, and son, Brandon, 25 - is nervous.

The bulging discs weren't the first serious injuries Barthle suffered in competition.

Steers' horns practically ripped the cheekbone from his face and sliced his pectoral muscle in two. And though he says he didn't suffer a concussion when he was thrown in Green Cove Springs, his wife says he did.

"When the pectoral muscle was torn in half, he was told that with surgery they may be able to restore his right shoulder to 60 percent," said ReVae Barthle, who has been with Bob for more than 30 years. "But he would have been in a sling for six months, and that wasn't feasible for him with rodeo. He also runs a ranch. He didn't have the time.

"Plus, he's never been sick a day in his life."

Bob Barthle says his neck still occasionally gets stiff and sore, "but nothing major that amounts to anything."

He took a hiatus after being injured because he was burned out from the years of near-constant traveling, competing and practicing.

"I didn't realize I would miss it," he said. "I've done it all my life, as well as my dad and just everybody else. When it's in your blood, it's hard to get it out.

ReVae Barthle doesn't seem thrilled that her husband is ready to jump on a steer again. Like her husband, she was raised around rodeos. Her father, Lucky Mansfield, was a steer wrestler.

However, her husband has promised to temper his natural riding abilities with greater discretion.

"He's always had a pretty style," she said. "No unused steps; everything was just right. We've heard that from so many people."

Treating this weekend's event as "just another rodeo," Bob Barthle said he hasn't done anything special to prepare.

"Just regular practice," he said. "I'm doing some jumping off the horse onto a steer, and I'm doing some ground work. With the steers, you take them out of a chute and just grab them on the ground and throw them down instead of jumping off the horse all the time."

He doesn't expect to be gun-shy once the chute opens.

"If I was hesitant at all, I wouldn't be doing it," he said. "It's one of those things that you can't be nervous about or you'll get hurt again. That was just a freak deal" in Green Cove Springs.

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613.

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