SALT LAKE CITY – Phil Kropp walks with the gait of a man who knows pain.
Those wicked scars that wind around both of his ankles? They're kicking wounds from the Salt Lake County Fair Rodeo in 2009.
The puncture wounds that snake along his left jaw? They're from bull horns that left a hole so large, "you could stick your hand through it," says Kropp, recalling Australia's 2002 Heritage Ranch Rodeo.
And about that short-term-memory loss that gets worse with each rodeo season? Kropp grins. Perhaps a lack of memory is what keeps him in the arena year after year, facing down ornery bulls with the gumption of a deer mouse staking out a bear's den.
Any bull-riding cowboy would be grateful to have Kropp in the corral, knowing that behind the goofy clown makeup and baggy pants is a big-hearted buckaroo from Down Under who wouldn't hesitate to risk his life to save theirs.
A bullfighter since age 15, Kropp, now 28 and living in Eden, Weber County, is appearing this week for the first time at the Days of '47 Rodeo in the Maverik Center. Originally from Australia, he stands out as the only clown with a silver surf wave painted on his cheek and a stuffed kangaroo attached to his suspenders.
A few days before the rodeo, he wanted to get together for a Free Lunch of cheeseburgers and fries at Crown Burger to talk about the rush of facing down a freight train every night for a living and the differences between a bullfighter and a clown. Short answer: The clown goes for laughs while the bullfighter's top priority is a cowboy's safety.
Kropp was only 2, growing up in the tiny Queensland town of Imbil (population 450), when he first painted his face, put on a cowboy hat and headed out to his dad's pasture to fight one of the family steers.
"Only trouble was, the 'bull' didn't want to cooperate," he recalls with a charming Aussie brogue. "Instead, our milking cow who had a new calf decided to give chase. So that's how I got started — with a milk cow chasing me all over and my dad laughing his head off."
After breaking about every bone in his body and appearing in rodeos across Australia, Kropp decided to try his luck in the United States in 2005. He lived in Texas for a time, then Idaho, before falling in love with a rodeo girl and settling down in Utah.
"We met in Las Vegas. She was tying goats, and I was fighting bulls," he says. "Guess you could say it was true love at first sight."
Tarah Kropp winces every time her husband is "hooked" by a bull and tossed into the air, "but she knows I'm good at getting back on my feet," he says.
"I've been knocked out, stomped on, battered and kicked. But if a bullfighter's doing his job, you won't even notice him out there. In an eight-second ride, anything can happen to the rider, so you just have to be ready to swoop in and do your thing. I love to fight bulls, but even more, I love to save lives."
Sometimes, the work is like standing in the middle of a demolition derby, "waiting to get hammered," he admits. But coming from Australia, Kropp knows there are fiercer creatures out there.
"Great white sharks — they're much bigger," he says.. "And they have teeth. I'll take my chances with a bull anytime."
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