Anthony Pritchard
Well-Known Member
The Bull Ride:The Barnyard Matador
Every farm kid learns early that some animals are ornery and some are mean, and you’d better know the difference. We had a bull that was not ornery. He was mean.
Mean enough that Dad and Granddad had to tie him down, pierce his septum, and put a ring in his nose with a long chain that dragged the ground. That chain was his governor. Every step he took tugged his nose down. He couldn’t run. He could only paw and bellow.
I figured that out.
And being five, and being a boy, I did what a five‑year‑old boy does with that kind of information. I threw stones at him.
From a safe distance. I’d lob a rock, hit him, and he’d throw his head and roar and paw the dirt and hate me with his whole self, but the chain would jerk his nose and stop him cold. I was safe. I was in charge. I was the matador of the barnyard.
Until the day he learned.
I was throwing stones again, same game, same safe distance, or so I thought, when he swung his big head sideways and flipped that chain up onto his back.
No drag. No tug. No governor.
The chase was on. And he did not mean to scare me. He meant to grind me into the dirt.
I have never run that fast before or since. There was a wooden gate, one of those solid plank gates with the X‑bracing, and I cleared it. My heels had just made it over when his head hit it.
He split that gate in half. Didn’t break through it, but caved it clean in, two halves hinged on the X.
I kept running and didn’t stop until I was behind the house.
Later that day, Dad and Granddad stood looking that gate over, scratching their heads, wondering what in the world had happened to it.
I never said a word.
~Tony
© A.K. Pritchard 2026
Every farm kid learns early that some animals are ornery and some are mean, and you’d better know the difference. We had a bull that was not ornery. He was mean.
Mean enough that Dad and Granddad had to tie him down, pierce his septum, and put a ring in his nose with a long chain that dragged the ground. That chain was his governor. Every step he took tugged his nose down. He couldn’t run. He could only paw and bellow.
I figured that out.
And being five, and being a boy, I did what a five‑year‑old boy does with that kind of information. I threw stones at him.
From a safe distance. I’d lob a rock, hit him, and he’d throw his head and roar and paw the dirt and hate me with his whole self, but the chain would jerk his nose and stop him cold. I was safe. I was in charge. I was the matador of the barnyard.
Until the day he learned.
I was throwing stones again, same game, same safe distance, or so I thought, when he swung his big head sideways and flipped that chain up onto his back.
No drag. No tug. No governor.
The chase was on. And he did not mean to scare me. He meant to grind me into the dirt.
I have never run that fast before or since. There was a wooden gate, one of those solid plank gates with the X‑bracing, and I cleared it. My heels had just made it over when his head hit it.
He split that gate in half. Didn’t break through it, but caved it clean in, two halves hinged on the X.
I kept running and didn’t stop until I was behind the house.
Later that day, Dad and Granddad stood looking that gate over, scratching their heads, wondering what in the world had happened to it.
I never said a word.
~Tony
© A.K. Pritchard 2026