World Gay Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas offers bull riding — and goat dressing

Sure, rodeo fans will find the events they’re used to seeing — calf roping and bareback bronc riding and such — when the International Gay Rodeo Association’s World Gay Rodeo Finals comes to Las Vegas.

But they’ll also see cowboys and cowgirls compete in a few different, more offbeat events that they’ll probably not see anywhere else.

Steer decorating. Wild Drag Race. Even goat dressing, which involves exactly what the name implies.

It’s this mix of Western tradition and contemporary tongue-in-cheek fun that has helped the World Gay Rodeo Finals hit its 30-year mark this year, and it’ll celebrate the three-decade anniversary next weekend with a four-day run at the South Point Arena and Equestrian Center, 9777 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

This year’s World Gay Rodeo Finals turns out to mesh well with Las Vegas’ PRIDE celebration. “We’ve kind of co-branded our event, ‘two great events in one big city,’ ” rodeo director Laura Scott says. “Come to the rodeo during the day and go to PRIDE at night. We’re participating in the parade Friday night.”

Rodeo events kick off at 7 p.m. Thursday with the IGRA Royalty Competition. Rodeo action begins at 10 a.m. Saturday and Oct. 23, and the rodeo awards ceremony will be at 8 p.m. Oct. 23. Also scheduled is a free dance and concert with country music artist Donnie Lee Strickland at 9 p.m. Saturday.

Like any rodeo, the World Gay Finals Rodeo selects royalty who will act as ambassadors for fundraising throughout the coming year, although, unlike most rodeos, its royal titles can be a bit confusing for newcomers.

There’s a Mr. IGRA (a man dressed as a man), a Ms. IGRA (a woman dressed as a woman), a Miss IGRA (a man dressed as a woman) and a MsTer IGRA (a woman dressed as a man), Scott says.

Meanwhile, the 115 rodeo competitors represent the top finishers from the IGRA’s recently completed 2016 season.

“We have the standard rodeo events — bull riding , team roping, barrel racing,” Scott says, as well as “a few events that are kind of unique to us.”

Goat dressing, for instance, a speed event that requires a team of two competitors to put a jockey-style pair of underwear on a goat. “This is the one I love,” Scott jokes. “I love it when the goat wins.”

Or steer decorating, in which a two-person team tries to tie a ribbon on a steer’s tail while also removing a loop of rope from the steer’s horns.

And, there’s the Wild Drag Race, which involves a team of three people: a man, a woman and one person in drag, Scott says. The team tries to move the steer across a designated line, and the drag member then has to ride it back over the line.

It’s a fun event, Scott says, but because it involves making a live steer do what it probably doesn’t want to, “it can be very dangerous. But it’s great for the audience, and it has been one of our staples for a long time.”

Scott notes this is the second year that the IGRA’s championship rodeo has been in Las Vegas. And, its name notwithstanding, not all of the participants are necessarily gay. That initially surprised Stephanie Malone of Las Vegas, reigning IGRA women’s world champion in pole bending, which is sort of like running a slalom course on horseback.

“I’m not gay,” says Malone, 31, who met Scott when Malone was working at Horseman’s Park, site of Las Vegas’ IGRA-qualifying rodeo.

“I said, ‘Is this for real?’” Malone recalls. “They all laughed at me and said, ‘We’ll let anybody do it. You don’t have to be gay.’”

Malone rode rodeo during high school and college, and says World Gay Rodeo Finals staff and participants have become “some of my best friends. I kept coming because it was so much fun and I made such good friends.”

Most World Gay Rodeo Finals participants are gay, Scott says, although “we have many straight competitors, wonderful friends and allies of ours, and we welcome everybody to our rodeo.”

“The whole mission of it, being a gay rodeo, was really because people wanted to feel like they could be themselves, to do what they love,” Scott adds.

Today, the IGRA is the sanctioning body for rodeo events that, according to the group, welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual participants.

Malone, who recently became eligible to compete in professional rodeos, says the vibe of IGRA-sanctioned rodeos is pleasantly low-key.

IGRA competitors tend to be amateurs, Scott says, and “we actually have some who’ve never ridden a steer and get on a steer to compete. At one of our regional rodeos, you can get on a steer for the very first time.

“That’s what makes our rodeo unique. Some of our events cater to the newcomers, so they can find a way to get involved. They don’t have a horse but they want to do the events.”

But don’t think for a second that they’re not as passionate as any other rodeo rider. Malone rode dirt bikes as a kid but says she “always wanted a horse. I don’t know where that came from.”

“I’ve definitely had my share of falls and accidents,” she says. Take last year’s World Gay Rodeo Finals, when her horse bucked after crossing the timer line, throwing Malone over its head. Malone’s head hit the ground and she blacked out for a few seconds.

“Everybody came to me and they carried and tried to send me to the hospital,” she says. “I wouldn’t let them. I just kept saying, ‘Did I win? Did I win?’ They said, ‘Yes, yes, you won.’”

Read more from John Przybys at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com and follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.