Mutton bustin': the Little League of rodeo country

SANTA FE, N.M. — It's 30 seconds before his big rodeo ride, and Julian Apodaca looks like he wants to disappear under the wide brim of his white cowboy hat.

He's staring down at his boots, tugging at his lower lip, rubbing at his teary eyes.

Julian's father, a former junior bull-riding champion, has a hand on each of his 5-year-old son's shoulders.

"It's OK, hijo," Vince Apodaca says as somebody plucks the hat off the boy's head and replaces it with a helmet. "Cowboy up, OK? I don't want no crying when you get on there."

This is the world of a little-known but beloved rodeo event where kids a couple of years out of diapers ride sheep just like the big boys ride bulls. Suburban parents put their kids in Little League. In the country, where rodeo is king, parents sign up their kids for mutton bustin'.

In a flash, a rodeo hand lifts Julian from his father's arms and swings him onto the back of an unhappy sheep, which is jerking around in a small pen. "I love you!" Vince calls out as the gate comes up.

The sheep shoots into the arena, and there's Julian, clinging tightly to its neck. Suddenly the animal cuts right and Julian slips left, tumbling into the dirt. As if that wasn't bad enough, the sheep kicks him with a hind hoof as it stumbles away.

There are gasps all around. Then Julian stands up, wobbles a bit, and grins.

Kids have probably been climbing on the backs of sheep for as long as there have been ranches. But it was in last 30 years or so that mutton bustin' started appearing at rodeos in the West. Here at the 60th annual Rodeo de Santa Fe, which has held the event since the mid-1990s, the rules are pretty simple: If your child is between 4 and 8 years old and weighs less than 65 pounds, you can sign a liability waiver, pay 30 bucks, plop him on a sheep and tell him to hang on.

Twenty kids will participate tonight in two groups, one before the rodeo begins and the second as halftime entertainment. The ride rarely lasts longer than a few seconds (sheep may not buck, but they sure can wiggle), and every boy or girl walks away with a shiny silver belt buckle stamped "Champion."

It's not a competition, but don't tell that to the parents, especially those who want their kids to grow up to be professional bull riders.

Observes Jamie Neal, who has organized the event for the last several years: "It can get intense."

Stone T. Smith may only be 5 years old, but he's got pedigree.