When I saw Gov. Maura Healey on horseback the other day, I thought for sure she was out to roundup a bunch of raging bulls.

What a first that would have been! No bull.

When is the last time you saw or heard of a Massachusetts governor on horseback going after a bull instead of slinging it?

The governor’s horseplay in front of the State House was part of the kickoff of MA250, which is the yearlong statewide project aimed at celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

“I grew up with horses in New Hampshire,” Healey said. “It’s not my first time on a horse.”

There was no bull at the MA250 event mainly because the Legislature was not in session. Otherwise, participants would have been armed with masks and shovels.

The bulls we are talking about are the bulls — eight of them — that escaped from the Festival Rodeo event at a mall in North Attleboro last week, the day before Healey was pictured outside the State House riding a horse.

Eventually, they all were rounded up — the bulls, not the governor’s horse — by Attleboro and North Attleboro fire and police officials, but not before they jumped over a perimeter fence in a parking lot while onlookers scattered.

All bull aside, the search for the bulls even included the Air Wing of the Massachusetts State Police.

While chaos erupted, there was no truth to the rumor that the bulls were trying out for a role in next year’s running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, which is the big league of bull running.

That is the ancient but once obscure event made internationally famous by American literary icon Earnest Hemingway following the publication of his 1926 breakthrough novel “The Sun Also Rises.”

In it, Hemingway describes how his main character (who is himself) and his drunken friends, when not sleeping around, ran with the bulls at the historic event. The event goes back ages as part of the annual Festival of San Germin, the patron saint of Pamplona.

Few people outside of Spain had heard about it before Hemingway’s book. Since then, it has become an international media attraction and financial windfall.

Held annually in July, the event attracts some one million tourists and is broadcast worldwide. It is a big business complete with package tours. It is like the hordes of people who climb Mt. Everest without, however, getting cold.

Every morning during the festival six bulls are released from a corral onto the streets headed for the bull ring where they are later, of course, killed.

So, it is no wonder the bulls come out of the corral angry and seek to run over, gore, or kill a human or two.

Crazies in white shirts and red scarves run in front of the bulls to show their bravery or stupidity and have a jolly time unless they are stomped on or gored to death. Being drunk or under a grappa buzz helps.

Still, in the interest of creating another Massachusetts first that Healey can brag about, the governor ought to consider creating a “Running of the Bulls” event for the state like the one in Pamplona.

Healey, talking about Massachusetts being the first in many historic accomplishments earlier said, “We were first in freedom and we’re first in health care, innovation, education.”

So why not cut the bull and be the first state to run with the bulls, like in North Attleboro?

It could be financed by the state Office of Travel and Tourism which is distributing $1.5 million to support programs celebrating MA250. Tourists would love it.

The event could be held annually on the Fourth of July. The bulls would be corralled on the grassy front of the State House, which is already fenced in.

Once set loose they would run down the hill from the State House, the bull…t center of the state, to Boston City Hall, the bull…t center of the city.

Bullslingers from the Massachusetts Legislature and Boston City Council, all dressed in patriotic red bandanas, white shirts and blue pants, would run with the bulls in observance of the birthplace of the country.

It would be another Massachusetts first.

And that’s no bull.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

Several bulls escaped a pen at a local rodeo on Route 1 in North Attleboro Sunday, Sept. 22. The bulls made their way into the backyard of a home on Prescott Street in Attleboro where rodeo workers set up fencing to corral the bulls into a cattle trailer. (Photo by Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle)