story by Ruth Nicolaus
At 4:30 am every weekday morning, Chase Vossler is pumping iron in his shop at home in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The Colorado Pro Rodeo Association bareback rider likes to stay fit, and he likes to mix up his workout regimen, hard weight days with cardio days.
It’s all to stay in shape for rodeo, which the 22-year-old cowboy has been doing since his high school days.
Growing up in Cheyenne, he participated in high school rodeo as a bull rider and team roper, graduating from Cheyenne East High School in 2017.
Attending Colorado Northwest College in Rangeley, Chase rode bulls, team roped and steer wrestled for a year before adding bareback riding to his repertoire.
“It was my college coach, Jed Moore’s, idea,” he said. “He put the bug in my head, so I tried it my sophomore year, and it stuck with me. It’s what I like to do the most.”
Chase graduated from college in 2019 with a degree in animal science, and is in his rookie year in the PRCA.
He works for a boss who understands rodeo.
His boss, Clay Sullivan, is his dad’s former traveling partner, “back in the day when they rode bulls together,” Chase said. And prior to that, Clay and his dad, Bill Vossler, worked for Chase’s grandpa, Frank Vossler.
Because Clay is a retired bull rider, he understands the rodeo lifestyle and lets Chase be gone when he needs to rodeo.
Chase wrestled as a kid, starting at age five and continuing through high school. He made it to the high school state wrestling tournament all four years, finishing in third place three times and in the number five spot once.
He believes wrestling prepared him for riding bareback horses. There are “a ton” of similarities between the disciplines, he thinks. “For one, they’re both demanding.” In high school wrestling, the wrestlers worked out every morning and had practice every night.
And the two sports are based on the individual’s effort, not the team’s. “On the wrestling mat, it’s just you and your opponent. There’s nobody else, and you can only control yourself. In bareback riding, it’s just you and the horse, and you can only control what you do. You can’t control what the horse does, what the judges do, it’s all on you.”
Wrestling made him a better bareback rider, “one hundred percent,” he said.
He got collegiate wrestling offers from more than ten schools, but he decided he wanted to rodeo, and he’s glad he made that choice. “Rodeo has opened up a lot of doors and opportunities for me, that I would never have gotten in wrestling. It’s definitely made me who I am today.”
The entire Vossler family is athletic, Chase said. His dad rodeoed; his mom, Beverly, competed in gymnastics. And his three older brothers: Colby, Joey and Frankie, all competed at D1 colleges, Colby in soccer, Joey in wrestling and Frankie in football.
Chase’s dad, Bill, was a PRCA member, qualifying for the Mountain States Circuit Finals Rodeo from 1980-1985. Chase competed at his first one this year, finishing fifth in the average.
He has been a CPRA member since 2018.
