Editor’s Note: In this article, GoHorseShow contributor and AQHA exhibitor Elizabeth Arnold wrote a heartfelt memorial to rodeo rider, Coy Lutz, who was from her hometown in Pennsylvania. While most of our readers don’t show on the rodeo circuit, there are many similarities including a passion for competition and horses. It is a moving piece of doing what you love regardless of the possible consequences.
Six years, and what feels like a lifetime ago, I worked on a ranch in the northwest corner of Wyoming. On Wednesday nights, the town of Jackson held a small rodeo. I’d often pack up my wrangle horse in one of the ranch’s trailers and run barrels. I never ran to win. I ran because I was young, and in Wyoming. On the nights I didn’t run, you could find me in the stands with my friends, laughing, drinking beer, and watching the rough stock.
Rodeo nights were a highlight of our week. Until the night a bareback rider lost his life. I remember him being bucked off, kicked, and then not getting up. I remember the paramedics rushing in. I remember the rodeo announcer singing amazing grace in a shaky baritone as they worked. I remember our silent drive home. It was the worst thing I’d ever witnessed.
Last week, a young man was killed in eerily similar circumstances at a rodeo in New Jersey. Coy Lutz, a 19-year-old bareback rider from my hometown in central Pennsylvania, was killed Saturday night at the Cowtown Rodeo in Pilesgrove, New Jersey.
I can’t claim to have known Coy well; I grew up showing livestock with his older sister. My sharpest memories of Coy are those of a young kid running around our county fairgrounds in early August. Coy showed goats at the fair and loved riding horses with his dad. The people in his family are some of the strongest, gentlest, most honest and hardworking people I know.
Doug, Coy’s dad, took up rodeo during his time serving in the military in Germany. When he and his wife moved back to the states, he began bullfighting. The Lutz kids grew up around the sport of rodeo. I’m sure it was only natural that Doug’s son, with whom he shared the closest of relationships, wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Ask his sisters and they’ll tell you that Coy developed a love for rodeo at a young age. And when he asked his parents if he could start riding bulls, his dad urged him to stick with baseball, knowing the havoc rodeo wreaks on a body. His mom, Sabine, insisted that if he did it, he be ready for the challenge. With that, Coy set out on a journey that would become the defining passion of his short life.
Knowing the Lutz family, it does not surprise me that they allowed their son to follow his dreams. And follow them he did. After a few seasons riding bulls, Coy switched to riding bareback horses. His talent and work ethic led him to the top of the leader boards in the state of Pennsylvania, to High School Rodeo championships, and a scholarship at the University of Tennessee Martin—one of the country’s top rodeo schools. Coy had just finished his first year at UT Martin where he set new bareback records.
His parents and sister would tell you that Coy had an excitement for life, for God, and for rodeo that could never be quieted. He was the first to lend a kind word and a prayer to a fellow rider, and also the first to share a joke behind the chutes. His quick wit, kind demeanor and ever-positive outlook earned him friends at rodeos nationwide. His sister, Laura says, “He was our baby brother and best friend. He had a lot of best friends because of the type of person he was. He was my dad’s best friend and my mom’s little boy.”
As I write this, my heart breaks for the Lutz family. It breaks for the family of the rider killed in that Wyoming rodeo six years ago. It breaks for every mother, father, wife, sibling, and loved one who’s lost someone to a senseless tragedy. At times like this, it’s natural to want to bring to order to chaos—to make sense of a senseless death. But I don’t think that’s possible.
No one will ever know why, on the night of May 28th, Coy Lutz lost his life doing what he loved. It’s not our place to know why, after he came off, he suffered a kick to the chest that not even his protective vest could prevent. It’s not our place to question why a young man of faith, heart, and incredible spirit was called home at 19. There are things in this life that will never make sense to us. That is something I believe Coy Lutz would want us to know.
I am writing these words, knowing how little words mean at a time like this, and yet, I still feel the need to give voice to Coy’s legacy. A legacy steeped in tradition, freedom, passion, and strength. I want to remember Coy’s life and not focus on his death. Because when I remember my childhood—a childhood much like Coy’s—and the nights at the county fair, the days spent lazing around on the backs of gentle quarter horses, and the awe in my heart while sitting in the stands at a rodeo and listening to the national anthem as the teenage rodeo queen galloped around the arena—an American flag whipping beside her— I know how lucky I am.
Like Coy, I am lucky to have been raised in a lifestyle that honors hard work, talent, and dedication to a dream. I am lucky to have been raised by a family that understood the connection between kids and animals, and the power following your passion has to shape a life. I am lucky to have been taught that respect for others, your animals, and yourself will take you further in life than anything you can learn in a classroom.
And so, it has been with grit and grace that the Lutz family has accepted the loss of their son and brother. The strength of their words and actions over these past days proves the respect they had for Coy’s life and for his chosen road. He died doing what he loved. Those are the words they’ve shared with countless media outlets. That is the knowledge that’s getting them through.
Coy Lutz was living the American dream and competing in a uniquely American sport. Coy was living a life defined by freedom. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to live the life we do, to have these freedoms, and to share our days with such beautiful, and yet unpredictable creatures. Because everyone who competes with horses—be it in a halter class, over fences, or as a bareback rider in a rodeo, knows that whether or not we want to admit it, we’ve signed on for a dangerous sport. The fact is, what happened to Coy Lutz could have happened to any one of us who daily throw our leg over a quiet pleasure horse.
Safety is never a guarantee in a sport that involves a 1,200-pound animal, no matter how broke or how quiet. But we are free to follow our passions, to pursue our dreams, and to continue a tradition so much greater than any one of us—no matter how wild, how dangerous, or how ignorant the world often is to our unique lifestyle.
As we stood in line at Coy’s visitation Monday night, alongside young and old men in jeans, boots, and dusty hats, my dad leaned into me and said, “You know, these are the best people in the world.” I nodded as he said it, watching the sun sink and dust rise as the cowboys climbed in their trucks.
My mind went back to the night at the Wyoming rodeo, the opening of the chute, the rush of horseflesh, and the sound of the announcer’s singing. It went back to the nights at the county fair—to how little we kids knew about the world, its dangers and harshness—to how precious those days were.
Tonight, as I saddled my horse, I spent a long time looking at the sign in my barn. It’s a simple sign—a quote by bareback rider Chris Ledoux—that says, “Saddle Up and Follow Your Dreams.” That sign will forever hold new meaning for me. As I looked at it tonight and tightened my cinch, I couldn’t help but whisper a prayer and think of Coy.
About the Author: Elizabeth Arnold lives on a working farm in central Pennsylvania with her husband and a menagerie of animals. She holds an MFA in creative writing. Her work has been featured in numerous literary journals and listed as notable in Best American Essays. She is currently showing on the AQHA show circuit with her new horse, Surprising Huh.
Photos Courtesy of Lutz Family, Stephanie Walizer, UTM University Relations
