Mason Lowe was one of the top bull riders in the country — a beloved, witty 25-year-old from rural Missouri at the peak of his powers.
But inside the Denver Coliseum at the National Western Stock Show on Tuesday night, a bucking bull — the animal he built his entire life around — threw Lowe off and stomped on his chest.
He died later that night.
It was a rare tragedy, even in the brutal world of competitive bull riding. Lowe’s death is only the third involving a rider at a Professional Bull Riders-sanctioned event since the organization was founded in 1992. And it’s the first rodeo-related death in the Denver stock show’s 113-year history.
“We are heartbroken by the passing of Mason Lowe,” Sean Gleason, CEO of Professional Bull Riders, said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference at the coliseum.
Lowe was ranked No. 18 in the world at the time of his death.
John Aronson and his wife were in the stands Tuesday night, taking in their first PBR bull-riding show.
“I (saw) Mason ejected from his bull and, like many other fallen riders, was directly underneath the agitated animal when he hit the ground,” he wrote to The Denver Post. “The bull’s rear legs seemed to come down with full force right on top of him.”
He watched Lowe attempt to stand up, then collapse.
“The crowd went silent,” Aronson wrote. Some people began to pray. Others spoke worriedly in hushed conversation. Finally, medical personnel took the injured cowboy out of the arena on a gurney.
Lowe was taken to Denver Health Medical Center, where he died of a massive heart injury, Gleason said. Lowe had been wearing a protective vest.
Bull riders, friends and competitors of Lowe’s were expected to compete Wednesday night, in part, to honor their fallen comrade.
“That’s the mentality of a bull rider,” Gleason said. “It’s what they love to do. They’d be riding in their backyard if they couldn’t be riding professionally.”
National Western officials planned to hold a special commemoration for Lowe, and already have begun raising money for his family through an online donation portal on the stock show’s website.
“Our entire rodeo family and every member of the stock show community is saddened by the loss of bull rider Mason Lowe,” Paul Andrews, the stock show’s president and CEO, said in a news release. “Our hearts and thoughts are with the Lowe family, his fellow bull riders and the entire PBR organization.”
At Wednesday’s news conference, Gleason read from a statement made by Lowe’s wife, Abbey. In part, it read: “Mason was the love of my life. He was my best friend. He loved the sport of bull riding and his PBR family. He was loved by his family and friends, and had a kind soul and heart of gold.”
“I just thought it was fun”
Lowe grew up in Exeter, Mo. — a small town of less than 800 people — and started riding dairy calves on his farm when he was just 3 years old, Lowe says in a tribute video provided by the PBR to The Denver Post.
“We used to go out there and feed ’em and my dad would stick me on the back of them and let me ride ’em,” Lowe says in the video. “I just thought it was fun.”
Eschewing high school rodeos, Lowe began competing in amateur events at age 15, according to the Professional Bull Riders. A 2016 profile on the organization’s website described him as a bull rider who couldn’t enjoy himself if he wasn’t pushing himself to limits. Lowe pursued the wildest, rankest bulls he could find, according to that profile.
He competed at his first PBR event in Arkansas in 2011, and eventually became a full-time rider on the PBR’s highest-level tour in 2015, qualifying for three consecutive PBR World Finals.
Lowe’s wry sense of humor comes through immediately. In the tribute video, the narrator asks him how he would best describe himself. He takes a deep breath.
“Uh … handsome,” he finally says in the video, breaking out into a wide grin. Then he looks to the camera and uses his tongue to pop out a false front tooth.
Lowe spoke about the determination it takes to be a bull rider.
“The way I was taught, don’t give up if you’re hurting a little bit,” he says in the video. “Just keep going at it, and hopefully it’ll pain away out.”
Austin Shirley met Lowe rodeoing eight or nine years ago through a mutual friend.
“Hell, he was a cowboy’s cowboy,” Shirley told The Denver Post in a message. “He could rope, ride and cover any bull. He never forgot where he came from (when) he made it big time and never forgot his roots.
“He was just an all-around great guy and someone you were proud to call a friend.”
Shirley said people know the risks when they get into bull riding, “but you put that into the back of your mind.”
“Whether you met him once or saw him every day, the whole rodeo community feels this,” he said. “And it hurts.”
“It’s very rare for someone to die”
While injuries are common in bull riding, fatalities are rare. Lowe is only the third PBR rider killed in action since the professional bull riding organization was founded in 1992. Glen Keely was killed at an event in Albuquerque in 2000, and Giliard Antonio died last year in Brazil. Both riders had been thrown from their bulls, and stomped on.
The death of bull rider Lane Frost in 1989 at the Cheyenne Frontier Days changed the way cowboys looked at safety, said Slade Long, a former bull rider and PBR employee, who has been keeping professional bull-riding statistics for 20 years.
Frost, depicted in the 1994 biopic “8 Seconds,” died after being rammed in the back with the bull’s horn, breaking several of his ribs and severing an artery. After his death, traveling partner — and a PBR founder — Cody Lambert created a protective vest that all riders now wear.
“Breaking ribs was super common in my day,” Long said. “Since Frost’s death, it’s way less prevalent.”
The vest is segmented, Long said, and similar to a bulletproof vest. “I guess you could say it’s horn-proof,” he said. “It disperses impact over a wider area.”
All bull riders are required to wear a protective vest to compete, according to PBR’s rider safety guide. Younger bull riders, those born Oct. 15, 1994, and later, also are required to wear helmets — another major change from the 1980s and ’90s.
“It’s pretty freaky,” Long said. “There are close calls — everyone in the sport has it in their mind that it’s seriously dangerous. But it’s very rare for someone to die.”
Gleason, the head of the PBR, said bull riders understand, and accept, the dangers of their sport. “They know the risks,” he said.
The bull — named Hard Times — that Lowe rode Tuesday night will continue to be part of the riding circuit, Gleason said. Lowe had not ridden Hard Times before Tuesday. Competing bulls typically weigh between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds.
“The bull absolutely unintentionally injured and killed Mason,” Gleason said. “… In this particular case, he had no idea that Mason had been sucked underneath him. The bull did not do this with any mal-intent.”
In a September 2017 interview on the PBR website, Lowe described the mind-set it takes to ride a bull for a living.
“You can’t really think about it when you’re out there,” Lowe told the organization. “Once you start thinking about what the bull’s going to do next, that’s when you’re a second too late.”
