Dr. Jeanie Nugent, right and assistant Courtney Stevens, left, treat a competitor before the 2005 Amador County Fair Rodeo on July 30 in Plymouth. Photo by: Sean Rabé Dr. Jeanie Nugent, a volunteer rodeo doctor for nine years, has met many people, including famous rodeo clown and bull fighter Dwayne Hargo. Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch

Dr. Jeanie Nugent, doctor of chiropractic, donates work to the cowboys and cowgirls every year at the Amador County Fair's California Pro Rodeo Association competition.

It's something she's been doing in Amador for five years now and longer elsewhere - giving back to the rodeo community with free care. She sets up shop under the starting chute, putting in an office with a padded table and a first aid table a few hours before the rodeo starts.

With assistant, local talent Courtney Stevens, her aide this year, she worked on the cowboys and cowgirls until about an hour before riding started both Friday and Saturday nights.

She said she got into rodeo chiropractic doctoring with the aim "to teach them to better take care of themselves."

Occasionally, she'll treat riders during the rodeo and she also sends them to doctors or surgeons for treatment. She said it's a touchy subject. Some rodeo riders think it's bad luck to ride in an ambulance. But she handles it professionally. And she's been working around the rodeo circuit for so long, she has become tight with many riders.

"I really enjoy this," Nugent said. "The people that compete in the rodeos are like a family. They travel together and get to know each other well."

And she is one of the rodeo family members as well. Her clients, the cowboys and cowgirls, help her carry her tables and office implements down the stairs to the area behind the launch chute. They help set the tables up and when the riding and wrestling and rustling ends, they help tear down the office and carry away the implements.

Nugent, who runs her Family Chiropractic office at 431 Sutter Hill Road in Sutter Creek, got into volunteer rodeo doctoring when she was in chiropractic school, when she joined a doctors' club called Wrangler Chiropractor. She later joined a club called ProSport Chiropractic, with two others, Dr. Dina Morrison and Dr. Stephanie Szabo.

Their aim, as hers is now, was to keep the riders riding.

She treats steer wrestlers, bull riders, barrel racers, team ropers and all of the pro rodeo and county fair rodeo competitors. She said most of the events are co-ed now, including bull riding, which featured a woman competitor at the Amador fair.

"She's been doing it since she was 16 and I've been treating her since she was 16," Nugent said of the lady bull rider.

The doctor works a lot of weekends at rodeos. She's been doing the Amador County Fair rodeo for five years. The Clements Stampede, which she worked in June, she's been doing for nine years. And Aug. 26 through 28, she'll be in Clements again for the American West 4-D Barrel Racing competition, the Wine Country Classic. She has also worked with the U.S. Team Roping Association, most recently in Patterson and is a member of a three-doctor team that works with riders in the Pro Bull Riding Association.

And then there's the older set.

"I am the doctor for the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association," Nugent said. The association is for riders aged 40 and older. The oldest rider she's ever heard of is a 70-year-old rodeo rider from New Zealand.

"They're debating whether to lower the age to 35 because they're running out of riders," Nugent said.

She said she started out in school, getting special training to be able to work with rodeo riders. She trained with sports injury treatment and learned things like reducing shoulder dislocation, special taping techniques, how to prepare competitors before an event and how to help with injuries afterward.

"Our goal was to try to teach them to take better care of themselves as athletes," Nugent said. That included avoiding travel-induced stress.

Some riders would ride in two rodeos in the same weekend, she said, such as riding Friday and Saturday in one rodeo and the driving to another to compete on a Sunday.

"They go to as many of them as they can because it's a point game," Nugent said. ''They win based on the number of points they earn throughout the season.

"My goal is to keep helping them stay healthy so they can compete," she said. That includes teaching them exercises, stretching, the importance of keeping hydrated and how to do rehabilitation techniques.

"They are a good group of people," Nugent said. "Everybody works really hard."