Columbus resident Reagan Mouser, 9, who goes by the stage name of Reagan Presley, entertains the audience during the 3 Bar J Rodeo during the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair at the Bartholomew County Fairgrounds in Columbus, Ind., Monday, June 24, 2024.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Among the dozens of participants in Monday night’s Three Bar J Rodeo were some athletic achievements such as wrestling steers to the ground, tying calves and staying on a bull for 8 seconds.
But the most impressive feats may have come from a 9-year-old local girl who wowed the packed grandstands at Tony Stewart Speedway and plenty of others stationed on the opposite side of the makeshift arena.
Between events, Reagan Mouser did special tricks like riding on the side of her horse Jim Dandy with one foot attached, standing up on the horse and laying off to its side. Mouser, who goes by the stage name Reagan Presley, learned the moves watching the Dixie Stampede, then practiced them on her new horse.
“I’ve been going to the Dixie Stampede my whole life, so I’ve been begging my mom for a horse for my birthday, and I got it last year in August. So I’ve been trying to match them. My dream is to be in the Dixie Stampede. I want to be like them.”
Mouser, who will be fourth grader at Mt. Healthy Elementary, had performed at rodeos in Lawrenceburg and Russellville, Kentucky. She also does breakaway roping and barrel racing, but focused on her feature performance Monday in her first time doing that in Columbus.
“It’s a lot more nerve-racking because you know a lot more people,” Mouser said. “If you mess up, I know, and I feel like they know, too.”
One Columbus resident tried the toughest and most dangerous event of the rodeo — bull riding. Colin Sluder had the front of his pants ripped when the bull stepped on him after throwing him off.
This was the third rodeo, and the first in Columbus, for Sluder, a sophomore at Indiana Ag and Tech, an online school.
“One of my buddies got me into it,” Sluder said. “It’s really an adrenaline rush. It’s real tough. It takes a lot of balance.”
Former Columbus East football player and swimmer Austin Smith, 25, watched from the crowd. Smith was a bull rider on and off for about two years until injuring his back in a fall just before last year’s rodeo in Columbus. He just recently found out that he has an L4 vertebrae compression fracture from that fall off the bull.
“I still love rodeo,” Smith said. “One day, I’ll get me a horse and get into the team roping and be on the other side of the arena. Not so much the rough stuff next time.”
While rodeo may be a niche sport, it landed in the spotlight a few weeks ago when a viral video showed a bull jump into and through the stands and upended an unsuspecting patron behind the stands. Mike Johnson, who has owned an operated Three Bar J for about 40 years, wasn’t worried about a similar occurrence happening in one of his rodeos.
“That’s just a freak deal out there, just a freak happening,” Johnson said. ”We have 6-foot tall panels and carry insurance. Luckily, we’ve never had that happen. We get a bull that acts like he’s going to jump, we don’t use him. He gets retired and goes to pasture.”
Based in Union City on the Indiana-Ohio border, Three Bar J puts on rodeos about three or four a week in the summer, mostly in those two states, along with Kentucky and Michigan. This was the third consecutive year it has been part of the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair.
“The contestants really support it,” Johnson said. “It’s a good crowd every year. It’s a very good rodeo. I really enjoy it down here. It’s a good committee to work with and a lot of good people in this area.”
