Broadway Cowboys

Billed as the "world championship.'' Colonel William T. Johnson's rodeo which opened last week in Manhattan for the first of five stands in its annual circuit is actually nothing of the sort. The nearest approach to championships in calf-roping, bulldogging, bronco-riding and the rest of the spectacular exhibitions that go to make up a rodeo are the point scores compiled by the Rodeo Association of America (of which the Johnson rodeo is not a member) from some 50 Western rodeos throughout the year. Nonetheless, because the Johnson show enables them to stare and be stared at along Broadway and because it offers them the biggest total in prize money ($40,000), cowboys seem to find the Manhattan rodeo the most stimulating event of its sort in the year.

Last week, 200 rodeo performers--men and women who average $2,000 a year in prize money, out of which they pay their own expenses, entry fees and hospital bills --were on hand for the opening in Madison Square Garden. New features: a Mexican band; a corral full of Canadian bucking horses freshly picked by Colonel Johnson's bronco scout, Mike Hastings; Horseshoe Pitcher Ted Allen of Alhambra, Calif., whose best trick consists of making a shoe knock a paper bag off the head of an assistant named George on its way to falling for a ringer; and a bronco-rider named Sol Schneider who has spent his life in Brooklyn where his experience with horses began as lead-boy in a Coney Island pony ranch. Manhattan rodeo audiences, whose familiarity with bronco-riding has been gained from newsreels which show riders only as they are falling off, are inclined to suppose that to fall is the object of the event. Consequently, Cowboy Schneider became a hero with the gallery. More accustomed to piebald Shetlands than to angry cow-ponies, he failed to last the minimum ten seconds in his first six attempts. Less daring than Brooklyn's famed matador, Sidney Frumkin (Sidney Franklin), Cowboy Schneider has tried riding steers but never wrestled one. Leading contestants after the event was a week old were Bulldogger Dick Shelton --once invited by the late Tex Rickard to become a prizefighter with coaching by Jack Dempsey--who threw a steer in 10 seconds; Trick Rider Tad Lucas, who designs her own costumes, makes $12,000 a year, uses Black Narcissus perfume.

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