Sitting in the coolness of a small building that abuts the Ute Indian Tribe corrals in Mt. Emmons, Sherwood Cuch pushes his cowboy hat back slightly and smiles broadly from beneath his salt-and-pepper mustache as he recalls the years he's spent chasing “the perfect ride.”

“Perfect, in bareback riding, is the ultimate dream and that's what you shoot for every time you call the chutes,” he says. “It's a dream to get on a good bucking horse. They're out there.”

Cuch, the Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo's 2009 Legendary Cowboy, describes the ideal ride as one where the cowboy and the horse bring their best into the arena, each one matching the other's every move with flawless timing, raw determination, and a flair of drama.

“Everything is clicking. Your energy level is high and (the horse's) energy level is high,” Cuch says. “It just blends together ... once you get off, you're never tired after a perfect ride.”

Cuch's most perfect ride came in the early '70s when he came back to Vernal and fulfilled his Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association permit during the Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo with a second place finish in the bareback event.

“That was the greatest honor I've ever had,” he says.

Born nearly 61 years ago in Lapoint, Cuch has been around livestock his entire life.

“I was born in the fall time and they took me on the first cattle drive when I was just a little guy,” he says. “What my mom tells me is I was put on the floorboard of a pickup truck in a cardboard box with papers on top to keep me warm. That was the very first time and I've been doing it ever since.”

Growing up in a ranching family Cuch learned to enjoy riding a good horse, seeing things grow as the seasons progressed, and watching a cattle herd come together under the guidance of a skilled hand and a careful eye.

“It's satisfying,” he says. “Sooner or later everything blends together and you see a finished product in the fall.”

To earn extra money he took the skills he learned breaking horses and rounding up stray cattle to the rodeo grounds. The sport – his passion – was a lot of “hurry up and wait,” Cuch says, and involved countless hours in a cramped pickup truck cab with other cowboys driving through the night to the next event. They ate a lot of hamburgers, hot dogs, and bologna sandwiches.

“When you're not winning, that's how it is,” Cuch says.

Then there were the innumerable injuries that came with challenging wild livestock to battles of will in eight second increments. During his 40 years in the arena Cuch has broken both collarbones, his ankles, ribs, wrist, and hand. Family members say he also has a hoof print embossed on his chest from the time he attempted to ride a Clydesdale bareback and got stepped on.

Cuch rarely let the injuries keep him out of the chutes though, especially if he was on a winning streak.

“If you're hotter than a pistol, it's what you do,” he said. “You don't slow down.”

Monica Nebeker of Myton nominated Cuch for the Legendary Cowboy Award. Nebeker serves on the rodeo's sponsorship committee and believed Cuch's experience on the range and in the arena made him an excellent candidate.

“He's a true cowboy,” she says. “He's not just a rancher, he's an actual cowboy who rodeoed.”

Cuch competed not only in bareback riding, but has ridden bulls and saddle broncs as well, and team roped. He's toured all over the western U.S. and Canada as a member of the PRCA, the National Old Timers Rodeo Association, and the Rocky Mountain Indian Rodeo Association. He has been the director, regional director and state representative for the RMIRA, as well as the association's champion several times.

Mechelle Miller, president of the Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo Committee, says each year there are between three and five individuals nominated for the Legendary Cowboy Award. After the initial nominations are presented by members of the board a more in-depth presentation is made for each candidate, detailing their qualifications.

“These are special people in the community,” Miller says of those nominated. “They're ranchers, they're cowboys, they're making that Western spirit live on.”

Miller says Cuch was chosen for the honor with a unanimous vote.

“It was a good nomination,” she says. “Sherwood is very deserving. He's a good pick for this year.”

Cuch says when he was approached about being nominated he “kind of ho-hummed around about it.”

“I didn't feel like I deserved it. I thought, 'Nobody's going to vote for me.'”

When he learned he'd been chosen from among the other nominees, Cuch was shocked.

“It's a great honor, what they've given me,” he says. “To be in that arena and smell the dirt, smell the life that I have truly loved is indescribable. ...You live, eat, and breathe rodeo. That's the best way to describe it, I think.”

Asked if he's done competing, Cuch says his family says he is, but he's not hanging up his spurs just yet.

“I might be 10 or 5 pounds overweight, but physically and mentally I'm still strong,” he says. “That's what it takes. If you can control your mind and your spirit, and God's says 'yes,' you can go back. He'll let you.”