Mike Corey is one of those guys who can sum up their lives in a few words – and yet, if you could watch the video of his life, the incredible footage would go on for days. Moving herds of cattle across wild land, watching weather roll across mountains. Months in the forests of Montana hunting elk and deer. All on horseback. He’s also one of only about 80 outfits that raise rodeo stock for the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA), providing bucking bulls and horses for more than 20 rodeos in the Pacific Northwest, including the Moses Lake Roundup and others in Sisters, OR, Basin City, WA, Ellensburg, Coeur d’Alene, ID, and the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.
When asked if he was a cowboy, he replied, “Everyone’s definition of a cowboy is different. But I never had a bicycle, I always had a horse.”
Corey was born and raised on a Washington ranch a stone’s throw from the Canadian border. He said he was always intrigued with animals, and it’s his respect and care for the horses and bulls that he works with that has got him so far – not any sort of formal education. “I see the good in them… I get to know them and understand them. It’s rare people get that time. If you didn’t see it, you wouldn’t be good at it,” he said of his success. “Some people just have that instinct and develop it.”
Every bull and every horse has a name – and Corey knows them. He also knows how old they are, who their parents are, how many rodeos they’ve traveled to each season and if they’ve had any good or bad runs in the arena.
Corey shares his rodeo rough stock company, Corey & Lange Rodeo Co., with his partner in life, Leslie “Bear” Lange. The operation is scattered across owned and leased pastured around Moses Lake, where he employs one full-time hand and a handful of others. His bulls have been placed in the top 5 of the country several times and his horses have been in the top 100 more times than you can count.
Like his own history, Corey sums up the history of rodeo and rodeo stock in short, “It all started with the horse that didn’t want to be rode.”
Since that horse, Corey said, rodeo stock has come a long way in developing long bloodlines over generations that love to buck. “They don’t buck because they have a rope tied around their genitals. You can pet them, even the bulls. You just can’t ride them.” They’re not killers, he said, but he’s also said, chuckling, “I’m not gonna say they don’t find some satisfaction when they throw a rider – they know what their job is.”
The genetic lines Corey has nurtured over the years are fruitful and buck hard. He said it’s a long process, and you have to bet on a breeding pair you don’t know will pay off for more than a decade. Bulls might have a couple shows in the ring at age three to get them used to the environment, and by five are at their peak and by nine are out to pasture. Horses, studs and mares, start a little later, age four at the earliest, but can work in the arena until their late teens or even early 20’s. Once you have a good line you know right away, he said. And he has a few, and is looking forward to having a few more.
He said of the bull who jumped his fence in Oregon not too long ago [you may have heard of him, he’s the most famous bull in rodeo right now], sometimes you have to give them a second chance. “If we never gave kids a second chance we’d probably have no good kids,” he said. The infamous bull will not get a second chance in the arena, but will have a happy life with his offspring at the ranch.
Of his hometown rodeo, the Moses Lake Roundup, Corey is very proud. The significant growth, is manyfold, he said: a good, large purse; tremendous support from the community and great crowds; improving facilities; and, he likes to think the stock doesn’t hurt. He said it has become a pretty big event in the professional circuit, and we don’t lack for big name entries.
Between the growing crowds, and the Cowboy TV deal [where the Roundup is now being broadcast], Corey said, “I’m proud we can bring it out to more people. It’s good family entertainment. With everything that happened… and everything that’s happening, we’re [the rodeo community] consistent. We pray, we’re patriots, we honor those who went before. We’ve kept the Western way alive and I’m proud to have been a part of that for many years.”
You can catch some of Corey’s rough stock in action at this year’s Moses Lake Roundup, August 15-17. For more information, visit www.moseslakeroundup.com.
