Hats | Ellensburg, WA | September 2019
How many rodeo hands does it take to prep a roper? Just count the hats. One interesting aspect of any sport is the identifying costume of participants and their admiring followers. Football fans wear team jerseys. Tennis spectators dress in white. And some amateur bicyclists pedal even on short trips in spandex outfits covered in advertising. But rodeo probably has the most persistent dress code — pointy-toed boots, stiff denim jeans, pearl snap shirts and cattleman hats. Thus the reluctance of, say, bareback riders to don helmets and safety vests. After all, are you a cowboy or a cream puff?
IrwinFoto 