“We had a running of the bull,” the fair’s GM, Thomas Musser, told Pollstar.

He said fans roared as the animal ran through the crowd of approximately 9,000.

The bull broke loose while being loaded from an exhibition and bolted through the entrance of the grandstand, knocking down a six-foot fence on the side of the stage. It was caught in a back corner behind the stage.

A fair employee for that week’s bull riding competition happened to be nearby.

“He grabbed the rope that was on the halter to the bull, wrapped it a couple times around a post and held onto it,” Musser explained.

An employee who tried to stop the animal was taken to a hospital for a dislocated shoulder, and a woman who was knocked down had a cut on the back of her head and declined medical treatment, according to Musser.

“Animals get loose at fairgrounds on a regular basis, but they usually try to get away from people,” he said, adding that in his 30 years of fair management, he’s never seen anything like this.

Perhaps the bull was lucky it didn’t storm the stage. That afternoon, Nugent, an avid hunter, was signing autographs at the fair’s exhibit hall for his cookbook, “Kill It & Grill It.”