Alberta women buck tradition and blaze their own trail in ranch bronc riding

Sophia Bunney launched the first time she tried ranch bronc riding, landing "quite a ways away from the horse."

"I'm very stubborn and I don't like being defeated," said the 18-year-old from Cessford, Alta.

In other words, the teenager was hooked on a sport that pits women against bucking horses for eight seconds.

"I always kind of wanted to hop on a bronc," Bunney said. "In Grade 3, we did 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' and I said I wanted to be a female bronc rider."

Unlike saddle bronc, a rodeo mainstay, ranch bronc uses a regular western saddle — not a specialized one — and riders hang on with two hands instead of one. A hand is on a rein and the other on a strap wrapped around the saddle's horn.

Pearl Kersey of Millarville, Alta., who won the Canadian women's ranch bronc title Sunday in Ponoka, Alta., is president of Women's Ranch Bronc Canada and teaches it at clinics.

"I've got teenagers, 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds and this year a woman in her 50s. I was like 'you sure?"' Kersey said. "She doesn't want to compete. She wants to try it before she gets too old.

"We have bucking machines. She doesn't necessarily need to get on a horse. They can go through all the drills and the bucking machine, and if they're comfortable enough, they can get on a horse."

"Women have come up to me and said, 'thank you for doing what you're doing.' They might not go into ranch broncs, but it just gave them the power in themselves to go pursue something that they wanted that they didn't think they could because they were women.

"Other girls tell me, 'I saw you ride at Ponoka,' and they're like 'I want to try it.' Sometimes it's a confidence-booster thing. Sometimes they want to see if they'll like it and some are like 'yeah,