Building A New Path For Women In Bull Riding

Bull riding almost killed Jorden Halvorsen once.

It happened about six years ago during a rodeo event in Tennessee, just days before the world basically shut down because of the pandemic. A part of her thinks she shouldn’t have even been there that night—it came after a heavy night of drinking and a five and a half hour road trip from Texas.

So, was it a surprise she got bucked off? 

Not really. That happens to every rider.

It’s what came next. 

Halvorsen was stepped on by a thousand-pound bull. The result was a grade-5 lacerated liver. 

The moment was serious enough that Halvorsen was put in a coma for three days. “My blood was thin already,” she said. “I flatlined twice.” 

Thankfully, she came out on the other side (albeit with doctors in COVID masks and full-length body suits). “They went in and stopped the bleeding,” Halvorsen said of her medical staff. “They packed it and saved the tissue.”

You would think an experience like that would have shocked her system and made her think twice about riding bulls again. 

Nope. 

Halvorsen didn’t even flinch. 

She rode three months later.

Over the next four years she won three women’s bull riding championships—now part of four over her career. Then in 2023, on the heels of that hot streak, she formed the Elite Lady Bull Riders, an all-women’s bull riding association. Two years after that, Halvorsen and her league were spotlighted in the Freeform documentary series “Not Her First Rodeo.” 

Halvorsen rode her first bull at 17. She’s broken her arm, torn multiple ligaments, ripped her meniscus up, nearly died. At this point, rough stock bull riding is in her blood. 

While her career may be winding down at 31, it’s not over yet. 

Now it’s about sending the next generation forward.

“This is a neat and exciting opportunity for women’s bull riding,” she said. 

If anyone understands that type of thinking, it’s Jonnie Jonckowski, one of the sport’s legendary female bull riders and a national Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame inductee.

“The bottom line is that it’s just you and the bull anyway,” Jonckowski, 70, said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a girl or a guy on it. It’s the competition with the bull. That’s really where it’s at.” 

Getting Ready To Ride

In late June, Halvorsen entered into the OptiWize women’s bull riding championship, an all-women’s showcase featured in partnership with The Next Gambler, a men’s Professional Bull Riding (PBR) competition held at the Williamson County Expo Center in Taylor, Texas. Rough stock bull riding is a practice where riders hold a flat-braided rope with one hand while mounted to the bull as they try to hold on for eight seconds.

The Central Texas event, a first in this area for women, presented a chance for Halvorsen to compete in her new backyard–months earlier, she had moved from Newcastle to New Braunfels. The commute was a smooth 90 minutes. 

The Austin Gamblers, the PBR team that hosted the event alongside the Taylor Rodeo Association, worked with Halvorsen to ensure the women’s competition had equal representation. She even connected organizers to Optiwize Health, the Buda-based company she works for, as a sponsor. “It’s super meaningful to be here,” she said. “I tore my ACL for the third time, so just being able to be somewhat healthy and ride, that’s all I can ask for.” 

For Halvorsen, though, this was nothing new. Creating access for female riders is something that’s become second nature—even more so than an eight-second ride. 

“If it wasn’t for (the girls) showing up for me week in and week out, we wouldn’t be here,” she said. “They are the main reason we’re here. Because we do have something that is growing and getting bigger.”

Readying For A Night Of Riding

Just past 5:30 p.m., a steady stream of cowboys and cowgirls enter the expo center—some young, some old, many eager to see what this rodeo is all about. A group of young girls approach Halvorsen and her fellow riders. “Can we have a photo with you?” they ask.

About 30 minutes later, Halvorsen straps in her knee brace and wraps athletic tape around her wrists. A cannon explodes. The anthem plays. Inside the metal chute, men tie thick braided rope over mean bulls. They wear reinforced helmets and protective chest gear. The chute opens and a bull explodes out of the pen. 

Men slam on the dirt. Only a few reach eight seconds.

Just before 7 p.m., Halvorsen begins stretching. She grabs a black leather vest and a thick rope and starts teasing it around a metal fence. A fan approaches for a selfie. She obliges. 

“I do the same thing over and over again,” she says of her pre-ride checklist. “I get my bag where I want it on the fence. I get my bull rope out, my rosin (chalk). I make sure my boots are on. My knee braces.” 

Just before the women’s competition begins, Halvorsen reaches a zen-like focus. “Before bull riding, I’m just thinking about what I need to be doing and focusing on that,” she says. “I visualize my draw over and over in my head.” 

Today, she’s on a bull named Billy. 

Changing The Sport

Halvorsen’s impact on women’s bull riding is beginning to stretch wider than the West Texas prairie. She wasn’t the first woman to ride bulls, but she’s created tangible pathways to accelerate the impact of women in the ring.

That evidence can be seen in someone like Raven McCallum. Here, the 19-year-old is downright giddy that she’s even on the same dirt as her competitors. The event is her first with Halvorsen and maybe her 20th competition overall. Earlier in the day, Halvorsen added her on Snapchat.
“It’s a dream come true for me,” McCallum says. 

Like Halvorsen, McCallum started riding when she was barely out of high school. Her dad was a nine-time champion, so naturally, she said, she followed. First came sheep, then calves. Still a teenager but now more a woman than ever, she’s made the leap forward. In a few weeks, she’ll head outside the state for the first time and compete in California. She gets on a mean bull and drops quickly.

At 31, Jorden Halvorsen’s bull riding career is winding down. But it’s what she’s doing outside the arena that’s creating more opportunity inside it. Photo Credit: Cory Mull/Austin Fit Magazine

Rough stock bull riding is one of the world’s most dangerous sports. Athletes mount 1,000-pound bulls and hold on to a braided-rope with one hand as they try to last for eight seconds. Photo Credit: Cory Mull/Austin Fit Magazine

Next up is Emily Crowder. At 28, she’s been riding for seven years. Three years ago, Halvorsen invited her to her Elite Lady Bull Riders circuit. She’s been with the group ever since.

Still, life as a bull rider isn’t perfect. When she goes back home to Colorado, things dissipate. There are no female bull riding events, so she is forced to ride in shows with men. That’s fine. After all, it’s about you and the bull, anyway. But it’s not lost on her how much influence Halvorsen has had on her career. “She took me under her wing and took me to every rodeo and critiqued me in what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear,” Crowder said. “Being partnered with her has been huge.” 

Maybe Halvorsen didn’t plan for all of this. Growing up in North Carolina, her first love was horseback riding. Then one night she went to Shady Acres Rodeo, a well known gathering place for cowboys and cowgirls just south of Fayetteville. She paid $5 to get in and another $10 to ride a bull. Her first was a Charolais bull named Snowball. 

“I fell off really fast,” she said, “but I wasn’t scared.” 

That single ride led to her future: to True Grit Bull Riding School in Virginia, and then to another in Louisiana. She earned the chance of a lifetime when she scored a job with Dale Brigsby shooting content for him on his farm. She was featured on the Netflix show How to be a Cowboy. The everyday cycle of life followed: riding bulls, shooting content, dropping on mud, getting hurt, earning respect, winning moments. 

By 2018, she won her first championship and claimed the women’s Professional Bull Riding Association World Championship. 

Then came 2020, and that near death experience. 

In late June, Jorden Halvorsen rode in a women’s rough stock bull riding event at the Williamson County Expo Center in Taylor, Texas. Photo Credit: Cory Mull/Austin Fit Magazine

Building A New Path

Halvorsen rebounded from that three-day coma and a lacerated liver like a Marvel character. By 2022, she won another championship. A year later, she became a world champion again.

By 2024, she was the most dominant she’s ever been and earned another bull riding title.
“Nobody could beat me,” she said. 

But by then, Halvorsen was also planning for her future. In 2023, she started the Elite Lady Bull Riders and carved out a roster of women competing in rough stock events. The last few years she’s settled down, gotten healthy, became engaged, and started to build. She moved to Central Texas, too. 

“We want this to help us get more on the map and open up other doors of opportunity,” Halvorsen said. 

Jonckowski, a champion women’s bull rider who saw the sport grow in the 80s and 90s, was noticing all of this happening from afar. “I hope the exposure starts a whole new era,” she said. “It was big in my lifetime in the 90s. Then it faded out. Now things are getting brought back.” 

Finishing Off The Night In Style

When the chute opens, Halvorsen holds her rope tight.

She knows a thing or two about Billy. “He’s a practice bull,” she says—which means she just has to focus and hold on.

Billy is a beefy bull, so he struggles to kick. He’s less menacing than the others, and Halvorsen knows that. But this is still bull riding, so she moves as Billy moves. She sticks to him like glue. 

Eight seconds whip by, and then the horn sounds. Halvorsen jumps off, smiles, and waves to the crowd.

“For me, the score doesn’t matter,” she says. “For me, it’s about riding my bull because that’s the only thing I can control.”

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