‘I feel like a badass’: Native American rodeo thrives as a younger generation takes the reins

Indigenous riders demonstrate real cowboy culture in the US west through Native and general competitions

Joya Taylor, an 18-year-old Los Coyotes tribal member, can weave a horse at breakneck speed around a narrow course of metal drums. Those brief, adrenaline-fueled moments of competition involved in a rodeo, when her horse is flying and a single wrong move could mean hitting a 55-gallon barrel, require Taylor and the animal to move as one entity.

I want both of us to be thinking the same thing," she said. I want to move with his body when he moves."