There aren't many sports where surviving for eight seconds is considered a success, but professional bull riding isn't your usual rough-and-tumble.
The global rise of western dramas such as Yellowstone and 1883 has a growing legion of fans turning to rodeo sports for a new source of entertainment.
Bull riding is considered the most dangerous of them all: A potentially lethal dance between a cowboy and a 1,000 kilogram animal that's been specifically designed to shake them off.
But what exactly makes a bull buck?
It starts with genetics
Like horse racing, competition for a genetic slice of the best bucking bulls comes with a huge price tag.
Townsville breeder Mitch James tours around a dozen bucking bulls on the Professional Bull Riding (PBR) circuit — the sport's premier bull riding competition.
"I've probably spent half a million dollars over the last four years investing in the industry," Mr James said.
Good quality bull semen come in packets known as "straws" costing between $500 to $5,000 each.
Breeders usually import hundreds of straws at a time to compensate for instances where insemination might fail.
"I have bought five bulls over [from the United States] in the past four years and bring about 1,000 straws for them," Mr James said.
He said paying for embryos was even more expensive, with the going rate around $8,000 each because they're more difficult to source.
"It definitely is not cheap."
Is bull riding cruel or kind?
The bull riding industry said it was often correcting a common misbelief that a bull only bucked when its genitals were tied.
"That is very untrue," PBR Australia's Amanda Tuimalealiifano said.
"They have something called a flank strap around their hips like a belt.
"The flank strap helps ensure that they kick straight back and don't twist or turn, it is almost like a weightlifting belt."
When they're calves, bucking bulls have a light box placed on their back to encourage natural bucking before the flank strap is added, Ms Tuimalealiifano said.
"Then once it's on, it's go time [and] they are bred to buck, it's just instinct."
But not everyone is on board with bull riding
The flank strap, tail pulling, goad poles and — in some cases — cattle prods used in bull riding are contested by animal welfare groups.
"Basically it's just exploiting the animal's instincts," Gayle D'Arcy from Animal Liberation Queensland said.
She said those methods were unnecessarily cruel.
"There's no evidence whatsoever the bulls enjoy the experience. In fact, the evidence is that it is quite stressful and frightening for them," Ms D'Arcy said.
"To me it's like bullying, that you're tormenting an animal or teasing it to get a reaction in the form of bucking."
Record numbers at PBR
The PBR said it has seen record crowds attend events and more people streaming them online in the last 12 months thanks to "a movement" in the western industry.
"We have tens of thousands of people watching every single weekend … now with popular shows like Yellowstone," Ms Tuimalealiifano said.
"And we're seeing a lot more people from the city."
Now in its fifth season, ratings data from Nielsen shows the US western drama is one of the only shows where the Australian audience increases with each episode.
Ms Tuimalealiifano said the rise in the popularity of bull riding has also led to greater monitoring of animal safety and welfare.
"The bulls get the highest quality grain, they get ran daily, they get massages, acupuncture, sometimes chiropractic care after events," she said.
Most bulls reach their prime around age five or six, but some buck for up to 10 years, after which time Ms Tuimalealiifano said they retired to farms.
"If I come back in another life, I would love to be a bucking bull," she said.
The big bucks bring the big bucks
Australian riders are often lured to the United States, the home of the PBR and where the biggest dollars are made.
American champion Daylon Swearingen made AUD $2.5 million riding bulls in 2022 — a far cry from Australian champion, Singleton-born Cody Heffernan, who made $68,500 this year.
It means amateurs like Scott Stringer, a budding rider from Calliope in central Queensland, only moonlights in the saddle while working his day job as a carpenter.
"I've been riding since I was 10, it's what I wanted to do growing up," he said.
"I plan to be here [competing at the PBR] next year."
