Fans braved heavy late rain to cheer one of their favourites to victory at Saturday night's Professional Bull Riders Australia Wodonga Invitational.
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Merrijig's Will Purcell rode three out of three bulls for an aggregate score of 255 to win by three points from Cliff Richardson and jump from 16th to eighth in the PBR Australia standings.
In the championship round, Purcell's effort on Ransom 2 scored 87.75 points, the highest point ride of the night.
Spectators wearing raincoats, hats and ponchos filled most seats in the grandstands at Gateway Lakes, with organisers assuring people during the day the show would go on.
The Warnett family, of Wodonga, had followed the weather forecast closely and decided to buy new raincoats for Taj, 5, and Ollie, 3, just to be sure.
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Their father Ben, who works in the dairy genetics industry, said they enjoyed the bull riding spectacle.
"It's great that the Border can pull these kind of events," he said.
About 22 riders from Australia and overseas tackled the imposing eight-second tasks, including New Zealander Fraser Babbington, who first tried bull riding in 2004 aged 17.
"I got dared to get on a bull and pretty much just got the buck fever from there and fell in love with the sport," he said.
"Man versus beast, the whole challenge of it all.
"The whole thing between adrenaline and being scared, you've got to control that."
And injuries seem just part of the game - 10 years ago a bull jumped on Babbington's chest, causing broken ribs, laceration on his liver and a collapsed lung.
He spent 26 days in intensive care but was back riding within four months.
PBR Australia's Amanda Tuimalealiifano said the point scoring also took the individual bulls into account.
"This is definitely a two-athlete sport," she said.
"A lot of the fans actually know some of the bulls and cheer for the bulls rather than the riders."
Bull owner and former rider George Hempenstall, of Yass, has been breeding the animals for 30 years and had eight representatives competing at the Wodonga event.
He said although the bulls were trained from calves, the desire to buck couldn't be taught.`
"We can't make them buck, they have to want to buck," he said.
