The rules of the eight-second ride are simple: hold on for dear life, even if you’re mounted atop a sheep.
Five- and 6-year-olds will don their belt buckles and cowboy hats on opening day Tuesday at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for the ever-popular mutton bustin’.
Registration is closed for the indoor event at NRG Stadium, held daily from March 4-23 just ahead of the evening concerts. An outdoor opportunity in the Junction carnival area costs $20 per participant and spots are filled on a first-come, first-served basis every hour between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. throughout the duration of the rodeo.
Catherine Couturier, who owns a fine art photography gallery on Colquitt Street, said when her children reached the eligible age to ride a sheep at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, she jumped at the chance because, “What’s more Houston than mutton bustin’?”
Couturier’s son Andre, now a freshman in college, did it first in 2012, and his little sister Charlotte followed suit in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to halt pretty much everything across the globe.
“I never made my kids do anything they were scared of until Charlotte and mutton bustin’ and I felt sort of guilty, but I knew, as a Houstonian, she’d be bummed if she never did it,” Couturier said. “We went early in 2020 and they shut down the rodeo the same week, so if she hadn’t done it that time, she never would have been able to.”
Mutton bustin’ was first introduced at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in 2009 and now sees more than 250 participants each year. Hundreds of hand-selected sheep travel from Ault, Colorado for the event, which is broadcast live on the Space City Home Network.
Couturier said Charlotte lasted about three or four seconds on “Lindsay Low Lamb” and loved the experience.
“They are on and then they’re off,” she said. Although plenty of observers have probably seen a child or two break into tears at the end of a run, because they’re surprised or if their dismount is a little abrupt, Couturier sees it differently and credits the rodeo staff for her view.
“It happens so fast. The people immediately pick them up when they fall and make a big deal about the kids, who are all sort of in shock, so they don’t cry. To this day, [Charlotte] loves talking about mutton bustin’. Has she embellished a tad? Yes. But did she end up with a lot of dirt — and surprisingly, a penny — in her underwear that I had to shake out in the port-a-potty? Yes.”
Safety is a priority, said HLSR senior manager for attractions and competitions Angela Gutierrez.
“We give them a helmet and a vest, so if they do fall, they’re falling on something soft, and the dirt is soft,” she said.
Mutton busters must weigh 55 pounds or less, and the children are already pretty low to the ground. Gutierrez added that the sheep are used to being around people.
“They stink, but they’re friendly,” she said.
And even if your baby is not competing, the event is still fun to watch. It’s also pretty cool for the kids to have an arena full of spectators cheering for them, Gutierrez said.
This year, special mutton bustin’ competitions are planned for Armed Forces Appreciation Day on March 5 and First Responders Day on March 10. At those events the mutton busters will be children and grandchildren of veterans or first responders.
The competition to saddle up on a sheep is fierce. More than 2,000 children entered this year’s lottery system to ride at NRG Stadium, Gutierrez said.
“We have some families who take this very seriously,” she said. “They’ll call up and say their child just turned three and how do they get them signed up. Well, you wait until your child ages a couple of years.”
Every participant gets a medal and the winner each night is presented with a belt buckle. A different group performs at NRG for the first 19 nights and the winners come back on the final night so a grand champion can be named.
“It’s a really special experience for everyone involved,” Gutierrez said.
Couturier said that Charlotte, now 10, still has a white participation ribbon from event sponsor H-E-B. She only agreed to do it, her mother says, because she was promised a pink cowboy hat.
“Great parenting, but now she’s really glad she did it,” Couturier said. “There’s something really special about it. It would be a little scary, so I shouldn’t think it’s adorable when a kid gets scared and thrown into the dirt, but it’s not dangerous. It feels like a very Houston thing to do, a very Texas thing to do.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
