They come from all over, the steer wrestlers in town for La Fiesta de los Vaqueros.
Montana, Nebraska, Texas, you can understand.
Five steer wrestling competitors from South Dakota on Thursday alone — maybe you even come to expect that.
But Hilo, Hawaii?
That Hilo better be pronounced Hello?! because who in their right mind would trade in the sweet Hawaiian breeze for the lonesome dusty road of rodeo living?
Someone with rodeo in their blood. Someone like Cody Cabral.
Where Cody comes from, rodeo isn’t all that foreign.
“Ranching and cowboy life in Hawaii is actually really big,” said Cabral, who won the steer wrestling competition at the Tucson Rodeo last year and tallied a time of 5.6 on Saturday, to go along with his 4.7 in slack competition. “There are a lot of big ranches, and actually a lot of great cowboys. But they can’t make a living just rodeoing on an island.”
This, Cabral knew.
He inherited a love for the sport from his older brother and parents, Al and Nancy, and he had his eyes set on pro rodeo from a young age. Even a lofty high school basketball career couldn’t derail the 6-foot-5-inch Cabral, and at the ripe age of 17, he tired of the surf and the sun and headed to Walla Walla, Washington, to compete for its renowned junior college rodeo team.
Aside from assorted Christmases and a handful of trips back to compete in local rodeos — including the Panaewa Stampede Rodeo, which his parents put on in Hilo around Presidents Day every year — Cabral hasn’t lived on the islands since.
Unlike a cowboy from the contiguous U.S., who might swing back into his home state a few times throughout a year, stopping in on the family at least every so often, Cabral is almost perpetually in motion. His family owns a home in Oregon, and he says, ‘That’s where the mail goes.’” He lives part of the year in Texas with fellow steer wrestler, friend and mentor KC Jones, 9-time National Finals Rodeo contestant, and spends a lot of time in Arizona.
For so many, Hawaii is the dream.
For Cabral, this is.
“It always was the goal really,” he said. “I actually packed my bags and everything I owned in my trailer by rookie year and headed out. I literally live out of my trailer.”
Last year, finally, he settled down a bit, and at exactly the wrong time, and for all the wrong reasons.
Cabral tore a pectoral muscle last year at the Logandale (Nev.) Rodeo; at the time, he was in 14th place in the world standings, on pace to qualify for his first NFR. He’d already won Tucson. At 25, still a puppy in the graying and grizzled world of steer wrestling, this was his chance to make the big leap.
He may have found it again in Tucson this year.
“You kind of live for those good runs,” Cabral said on Thursday after his two-ride score of 12.3 seconds placed him in great standing for the short round on Sunday.
Truth be told, though, he lives for all of this.
This is a guy who could be basking by the beach with a brew right now, lulled to sleep by crashing waves. Instead, he chooses this life, and the bumps and bruises that come along with it.
“I actually had a good job right out of college, and I didn’t want to wake up 10 years down the road and wish I’d chased my dream,” said Cabral, who planned to drive to Scottsdale for the Parada Del Sol rodeo immediately following his performance on Thursday. “It’s kind of a phase, but I’ve driven through now 37 states, and I’m done so much and seen so much, and there’s so much time for me to settle down.”
