Marcus Mast By Kelly B. Robbins
Marcus Mast is an Indiana cowboy. Marcus is one of the talented young bull riders who has worked hard to steadily climb up through the ranks to the PBR Unleash the Beast Series. He lives in the little Amish town of Middlebury, Indiana with his wife, Jamie, six-year-old son Carson, and two-yearold daughter Macey. His early years were spent on his Amish family’s dairy farm in Middlebury. Growing up, he never even thought about riding bulls. His older brother, Nate, started sneaking away from the Amish culture, and started riding bulls at a venue in Van Wert, Ohio, about 1-1/2 hours from the farm. “When he did it, I wanted
to do it,” Marcus revealed. “When I turned 16 years old, I decided to give it a try. My brother-in-law offered to take me to a local practice pen where they used 400-500 lb. steers for novice riders. On the way, he told me that we were going to an event where they were riding bucking bulls, not the steers at the practice pen. I told him that was fine with me. He later told me that he didn’t think I would actually get on a bull.” “Well, I borrowed some gear and got on that first bull. I actually stayed on him for four or five seconds. When he bucked me off, I fell under him and he stepped all over me. He nearly broke my wrist and he stepped on my leg. I was in quite a bit of pain. When I got home, my dad knew what had happened, and he sure didn’t cut me any slack about doing my chores.” “I was 17 years old when my cousin and I entered the Van Wert event in the novice class,” Marcus continued. “You had to be 18 years old to ride or have a signed permission slip from your parents. We just told them we were 18, and they let us ride. We rode for two weekends, but when I called to enter on the third weekend, the owner of the venue asked me several times how old I was. He then told me that Nate had called to inform him that we were not 18 years old. I apologized to the owner, and he told us to come back when we turned 18.” “After turning 18, I went back to Van Wert and entered the jackpot bulls instead of the novice. The first week, I won the event. The second week I came in second. The third week I won it again. I won a gold buckle for that series. I was feeling pretty good about my bull riding, because there were PBR Touring Pro bull riders that came to Van Wert! But after winning that buckle, I didn’t ride a single bull to the buzzer the rest of the season.” Marcus was in a bad slump after that. He moved to Kansas for a year. “I guess it was a different place, a different atmosphere, different bulls, and I started winning again,” Marcus said. “I spent that year working construction and riding bulls.” “I became a father at age 19,” Marcus shared. “That helped me
Humps-Horns.com · 21 · February 2021
