Gorsuch Tells Story of His Kids Going ‘Mutton Busting’ at Colorado Rodeo

EXCERPT:

GORSUCH: “Well, senator, I get law clerks from all over the country, many from my — my region. I maybe favor my region, but I get plenty from out of the area, too. And we have a great rodeo in Denver every year, the Grand National. And it begins with a parade down 17th Street which would be like a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C., where you have cattle — it is a cattle drive down the main road in Denver. They shut it down. That’s how you mark the opening of the Grand National. And the closing of the Grand National is celebrated by the prize steer getting to spend a little time in the Brown Palace Hotel. Now, the Brown Palace Hotel is like the Willard or — pick your favorite fancy — the Plaza in New York. Yes. They bring the prize steer into the lobby of the Brown Palace. And in between, there is a rodeo and the stock show and the kids show their animals. My kids never made it to the Grand National. They are more county fair types with their chickens and their rabbits and dogs and whatever. But the kids compete to the Grand National — this Grand National! It’s big time. And then there’s mutton busting. And I think my children still have PTSD from mutton busting. (Laughter) A mutton busting, as you know, comes sort of like bronco busting for adults. You take a poor little kid, you find a sheep — (Laughter) — and you attach the one to the other and see how long they can hold on. And you know, it’s — it usually works fine when — when the sheep has got a lot of wool and you tell them to hold on. I tell my kids hold on monkey style, you know, really get in there, right? Get around it. (Laughter) Because if you sit upright, you go flying right off. Right? So you want to — you want to get in. But the problem when you get in is that you’re so locked in that you don’t want to let go. Right? And so, then the poor clown has to come and knock you off the sheep. And my daughters, you know, they got knocked around pretty good over the years.” (Laughter)