‘I feel like a badass’: Native American rodeo thrives as a younger generation takes the reins
Indigenous riders demonstrate real cowboy culture in the US west through Native and general competitions
Joya Taylor, an 18-year-old Los Coyotes tribal member, can weave a horse at breakneck speed around a narrow course of metal drums. Those brief, adrenaline-fueled moments of competition involved in a rodeo, when her horse is flying and a single wrong move could mean hitting a 55-gallon barrel, require Taylor and the animal to move as one entity.
“I want both of us to be thinking the same thing,” she said. “I want to move with his body when he moves.”
