For the sixth-consecutive year, professional bull riders will make their way to San Benito County on Sept. 8, but this year’s Hollister bull ridding festivities will be slightly different.
The event has been renamed the Hollister Chute Out, it will add Xtreme Bronc Riding to its day-long festivities and is no longer affiliated with the Professional Bull Riders organization.
Because of a scheduling conflict with the PBR – the national organization will be holding other bull riding events across the country – Hollister’s organizers decided to distance itself from the PBR this year. Instead – along with the usual bull riding – the Hollister event will host bronc riding, a futurity contest and mutton busting. And the bull riding, once again, will still consist of 40 professional riders from across the West Coast and the country.
“They are all professional bull riders,” organizer Billy Aviles said. “The quality of the show is not going to drop. The show is not going to suffer quality wise.”
The Hollister bull riding event will bring riders such as Zach Brown, a PBR rider, to the area, Aviles said.
The organizers expect the festivities to benefit from the change, because of more opportunities and freedom to add different events. More events, showcasing the history of the area, have been added, Dana Aviles said.
“It gives us more control,” she said. “It opens it up for us. We can add more events to our event and we will still have the same number of professional riders.”
Perhaps the biggest positive out of the change is the addition of the professional bronc riding circuit, Billy Aviles said. The Xtreme Bronc Riding company will bring six professional crews to Hollister. Four local teams will also participate in the event that has a long history with the area.
“San Benito County has a rich history in rodeo and one of the fan favorites here in Hollister is the wild horse race-slash-extreme bronc riding,” Billy Aviles said. “That’s something we wanted to incorporate with the bull riding. It’s a great kickoff and we are looking forward to it.”
Two-time Saddle Horse Show & Rodeo wild bronc ridding champions Paul Bianchi, Scott Naccarato and Adrian Gonzalez will be among the local teams hoping to keep the bronc champion inside Bolado Park.
“There is a big local flair,” Billy Aviles said. “We wanted to throw a new twist into the event and being that the wild horse race has a lot of history here is San Benito County, … it’s just a good fit. It’s two extreme sports. It’s a perfect fit.”
Portions of the proceeds from the event, where organizers expect around 2,000 attendees, will be donated to the San Benito High baseball program, the boy scouts, the Future Farmers of America local chapter and the Hollister Exchange Club.
“We’ve had successful events in the past and we’ve given a lot to charity,” Billy Aviles said. “And that’s what we want to keep going. We want to keep giving back. The kids helps us. We want it to be a community event. It’s all local sponsors so it’s a big sense of community. We feel it is very important to keep that going.”
For the fourth-consecutive year, the festivities will be kicked off with a golf tournament on Sept. 7. The tournament, which is moving from Ridgemark to Bolado Park, begins at 9 a.m. with a shotgun start. Registration costs $55 per person. Tickets include 18 holes of golf, a cart, a gift bag and a barbecue lunch. Afterward, the party will continue at the 19th Hole Booze and Food in Tres Pinos with a performance by country music singer Luke Kaufman, who will also announce the bull riding.
