Monday, Aug. 21, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.
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This weekend, the Professional Bull Riders Tour, which annually crowns its champion in Las Vegas, will head south of the border for the first time for an event called the Chihuahua Challenge.
The real Chihuahua Challenge is getting the bulls there in one piece.
Literally.
"This will be the first time ever that an American bull has crossed the border without being castrated or put into quarantine for 90 days," said Randy Bernard, the PBR's chief executive officer.
Bernard talked as if those two scenarios were roughly the same. That would cause concern if you wear a gold ring in your nose and answer to Mossy Oak Mudslinger or Smokeless Wardance or any of the other colorful nicknames used to distinguish the bull athletes, as the PBR likes to call them, from one another.
I mean, if I'm Mrs. Mudslinger, I'm probably voting for the quarantine - even if the old man does have a bad habit of leaving the china cabinet in disarray.
Hopefully, the cooperation between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies - and their Mexican equivalents - will preclude the bull athletes from leaving any vital parts at the border and developing Bee Gees' falsettos for the two-pronged finals at Mandalay Bay and the Thomas & Mack Center in October and November.
The PBR hopes that bull riding will become a big sport in Mexico and that Mexico will one day produce some world-class bucking bulls of its own. For now, the bulls down there are roughly on par with the mechanical one at Gilley's that John Travolta rode in "Urban Cowboy." They need an oil change and an overhaul.
"Hopefully, in the future there will be enough of the caliber bulls available in Mexico that we can use them at PBR events," said series livestock superintendent and vice president Cody Lambert, a former world champion rider.
"However, for our first event in Mexico it's important to transport and use the bulls that we know."
That's the politically correct way to say that only bulls that kick like Jan Stenerud or a 12-gauge shotgun need apply.
Bernard said the PBR bulls have undergone a battery of blood tests and other examinations to guarantee they don't spread infectious diseases such as tuberculosis or brucellosis. But that's only part of the logistical nightmare.
Banditos still are a concern in Mexico, especially when they are hungry. That's why the exact time of the bull run will remain a secret.
"The value of the bulls is a major concern," Bernard said of bovine athletes that have been known to fetch as much as $100,000 on the auction block.
The PBR bulls will cross into Mexico caravan style accompanied by a PBR security force and officials from both the state and city of Chihuahua police departments. Once they arrive, the bulls will be under full-time security surveillance - sort of like Salma Hayek during those "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" movies.
Only in this case, it's the bulls that will be doing most of the snorting instead of Antonio Banderas.
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