Rodeo
July 29th, 2008
Rodeo, which is very popular today within the Canadian province of Alberta and throughout the western United States, is the official state sport of Wyoming and Texas, and the iconic silhouette image of a Bucking Horse and Rider is a federal and state registered trademark of the State of Wyoming.
In North America, the traditional season for competitive rodeo runs from spring through fall. The traditional peak time for the largest number of rodeos is the July 4th weekend. The modern professional rodeo circuit runs longer, and concludes with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas, Nevada which is now held in December.
Rodeo has provoked protest and opposition from animal rights advocates who argue that various competitions constitute animal cruelty. In some cases, these groups have succeeded in having a number of local municipalities ban or restrict certain events.
The American English word "rodeo" is taken directly from Spanish. The most common English translation is "round up."
The Spanish word is derived from the verb rodear, meaning "to surround" or "go around," used to refer to "a pen for cattle at a fair or market," derived from the Latin rota or rotare, meaning to rotate or go around.
In Spanish America, the rodeo was the vaqueros' procedure for gathering up cattle for various purposes such as moving them to new pastures or to slaughter (matanza). The term was also used to refer to exhibitions of skills used in the working rodeo, and it is this latter usage which was adopted into the cowboy tradition of the United States and Canada.
The term rodeo was first used in English approximately 1834 to refer to a cattle round-up.
Many rodeo events were based on the real life tasks required by cattle ranching. The working cowboy developed skills to fit the needs of the terrain and climate of the American west, and had many regional variations. However, the skills required to manage cattle and horses date back even farther, to the Spanish traditions of the vaquero.
Early rodeos were informal events in both Mexico and the United States where cowboys and vaqueros tested their skills against one another. Early competitions were noted by the mid-1860s, and by the late 1800s, there were several formal competitive rodeos as well as traveling Wild West Shows that featured rodeo activities as a form of entertainment. By 1910, several major rodeos were established in western North America, including the Calgary Stampede, the Pendleton Round-Up, and the Cheyenne Frontier Days.
Rodeo-type events also became popular for a time in the big cities of the Eastern United States, with venues such as Madison Square Garden playing a part in popularizing them. However, there was no attempt to standardize the events needed to make up such sporting contests until 1929. Professional cowboys themselves did not officially adopt the term until 1945.
The WPRA recently emerged victorious in a struggle with the PRCA that might have been their undoing. After lengthy negotiations, the PRCA in 2007 severed relations with the WPRA. They formed a women's subsidiary, Professional Women's Barrel Racing or PWBR, with whom they would work in the future.
After almost a year of litigation, on Devember 6, 2007, it was announced that a Colorado Springs jury had awarded the WPRA $6.8 million in its lawsuit against the PRCA. This was a stunning setback for the PRCA, and an historic one for the WPRA. It also brought all parties back to the bargaining table. On January 23, 2008, the WPRA, PWBR, and PRCA announced the resolution of all litigation, and the merger of PWBR and WPRA. Through 2019, the WPRA will be the final sanctioning body for NFR barrel racing. The WPRA barrel racing chmpionship was also restored to the NFR.
Advocates for rodeo state that sick, injured, hungry, or severely abused animals cannot perform well in a given event. Rough stock must be healthy and well fed to give the cowboy a powerful and challenging ride sufficient to obtain a high score. The bucking strap has to be an incentive to an animal that already wants to buck off a rider, not a prod, or the animal will either flee the pain, not buck, quickly sour and refuse to work, regardless of any pain that might be inflicted. Steers and roping calves will not break from the chute fast enough for ropers to achieve a fast time if they are lame or weak, and they are not generally used for more than a single season.
Health regulations mandate vaccinations and blood testing of animals crossing state lines, so rodeo stock receives routine care. An injured animal will not buck well and hence a cowboy cannot obtain a high score for his ride, so sick or injured animals are not run through the chutes, but instead are given appropriate veterinary care so they can be returned to their usual level of strength and power. PRCA regulations require veterinarians to be available at all rodeos to treat both bucking stock and other animals as needed.
The PRCA emphasizes that they first promulgated rules for proper and humane treatment of livestock in 1947, a full 7 years before the founding of the Humane Society of the United States.
On the other hand, there are occasions of rule violations and animal mistreatment at sanctioned rodeos. However, the major national rodeos are also under the most intense scrutiny and are the most likely to rigorously follow the rules. Rodeos not subject to the rules of the PRCA or other organizations, and rodeos outside of the United States and Canada, where animal cruelty laws are weaker, are more likely to be the sites of abusive practices. However, animal rights groups are less likely to target these cases.
