HELENA — The bleachers at Cool Alley Arena on the Lewis and Clark County Fairgrounds will be packed later this week for the Last Chance Stampede. And rodeo spectators will get the chance to see live performances from five-time PRCA Specialty Act of the Year winner Bobby Kerr, better known as “The Mustang Man.”
It’s not every day you see horses and dogs riding shotgun in a classic car. But it’s all part of the act that’s taken rodeo’s Mustang Man all over the continent. And this week, it’s the act that has brought Kerr back to Helena for the Stampede.
“I just demonstrate what you can do with a wild horse,” said Kerr. “It’s incredible. Even myself still, when I’m driving through Nevada or wherever and I see wild horses, I’m just amazed. And I wonder how good that horse is that I just seen up there on the hill.”
But the question of how Kerr gets his wild mustangs to perform their set routines remains.
“It’s a bonding process,” said Kerr. “That’s the main thing. I tell everybody these horses had a running buddy out in the wild, and we kind of took that away when we gathered them. So, I try to become their running buddy.”
Kerr said each horse is different, and because of that requires a tailored training program.
“They’re all different, and you always got to be adjusting your program to fit that horse,” said Kerr. “That’s the easiest way to put it, I guess. You have to see what that horse wants to be good at and figure that out. Not all of them are going to want to cut a cow or be a barrel horse or whatever. You got to figure out what they want to be and run with that.”
When the Stampede kicks off Wednesday, it won’t be Kerr’s first Helena rodeo experience. Kerr performed at the Stampede two years ago.
“Well, the crowd’s really good; I mean exceptional,” said Kerr. “They kind of get what I’m doing, or they seem to. It’s a really good rodeo, one of the best nationwide.”
