Bull riding is a rodeo sport that involves a rider getting on a large male bovine, weighing between 1,000 and 2,500 pounds, which is held in a small pipe enclosure called a bucking chute . The rider tightly fastens one hand to the bull with a long woven leather rope. When the rider says he is ready, the gate of the bucking chute is opened and the bull bursts out and attempts to throw or buck off the rider.

Bulls, being prey animals, do not like having something on their backs. In the wild it might be a lion or some predator rather than a relatively harmless human. One commonly held misconception is that the flank cinch is used to bind the bull's genitals. The flank cinch fits in the area between the navel and the hips, as it would on a human male on all fours. At a bull riding event on a hot summers day, the freedom of the scrotum can be observed quite clearly as it hangs down approximately 10 inches and swings wildly while the bull bucks.

Bulls employ a number of techniques to buck off the rider such as belly rolls and spins. The rider attempts to stay on the bull for 8 seconds without touching the bull with his free hand. The rider that manages to complete a ride is scored on a scale of 0-50 and the bull is also scored on a scale of 0-50. Scores in the 80s are very good and in the 90s are exceptional.