The secrets to a successful ride: “Keep your feet in, chest out, your head tucked, shoulders back. If the bull twists around to the left, I drop my handle down a little bit.” And the secret to getting bucked off? “Try to land good and get up and get outta there.”

Despite best-laid plans, though, sometimes things go very wrong. I ask Najiah about the scar over her right eye. “That’s from Louisiana—I got my face stepped on, and my cage [the face mask at the front of her helmet] kind of ground into my face. I woke up the next morning with my eye swollen shut.” And just how long did getting her face stomped on keep her down? “Not long,” she says. “I rode the next day.”

When she’s not riding bulls, Najiah’s working out, every day: arms, legs, core; sit-ups, pull-ups, crunches. When she’s not riding bulls or working out, she’s likely playing basketball or volleyball or hip-hop dancing. “I’m not really into makeup and that kind of stuff,” she says.

After a shaky start at the Garden on Friday night, Najiah brushed herself off—though when I saw her after her ride, she still had dirt on her forehead—and got back on that, er, bull, winning Sunday’s final round and going back home with an even bigger smile on her face.

The world is starting to take notice: “Najiah is as committed as any athlete I have ever met,” says Sean Gleason, the CEO of the Professional Bull Riders tour. So are the sponsors. Najiah recently landed her first endorsement (the first endorsement, as it happens, for any rider on the Mini Bull Riders tour) when Ariat boots—a major and longtime sponsor of PBR—signed her up to join their roster, which includes former PBR world champions Cooper Davis and Jess Lockwood, along with former rookie of the year (and fellow Native American rider) Keyshawn Whitehorse and up-and-coming rider Ezekiel Mitchell.

Ezekiel Mitchell Photo: Dave Harding

Mitchell, the rare African American PBR star, debuted a shocking—by PBR standards—sartorial statement at the Garden: While bull riders’ dress has long consisted of a standard-issue uniform (Wranglers, starched white shirts, a black protective vest riddled with sponsor patches), Mitchell flew out of the chute in a matching (right down to the helmet) blue Ariat ensemble that turned more than a few behatted heads.

“I’m an out-there kind of guy,” Mitchell said on the Garden’s dirt floor after Friday night’s event, “so I thought, well, might as well play it up. The designer said he wanted to go for a kind of superhero-meets-Evel Knievel vibe.”

What, I wondered, did the other riders think of his razzle-dazzle? “They think it’s dope. I mean, I’m a trendsetter. At the end of the day, though, you put me out there in a tutu and I’ll ride—this is my job. This is what we do.”