Rodeo

   

Steer roping
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Steer roping

Rodeo is a traditional folk North American sport with influences from the history of Mexican vaqueros (cowboys) and American cowboys. Rodeo events include the rough stock events bull riding, bareback bronc riding, saddle bronc riding, the timed events steer wrestling, team roping, calf roping, the rarely seen steer roping, and women's barrel racing, breakaway roping, goat roping and pole bending. The participants include cowboys, cowgirls and also rodeo clowns or bull fighters. See also gymkhana and polo.

The oldest and largest sanctioning body of professional rodeo is the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) which sanctions around 700 rodeos annually. The Professional Bull Riders (PBR) is a recent organization dedicated to Bull Riding and puts on a number of events. There are also high school rodeos, amateur rodeos, and rodeos for women. Some colleges, such as the University of Montana have a rodeo team. The National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association is responsible for the College National Rodeo Finals.

There are numerous rodeos held throughout the United States and Canada. Among the more prominent are the Calgary Stampede; Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming; the National Western Stock Show in Denver; Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in Houston, Texas; and the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The NFR is held each December at the Thomas and Mack Center and features the top 15 (in terms of earnings) competitors from each of the events. In 2003, it is estimated that attandance at the 10 days of the National Finals Rodeo will top more than 170,000 with another 9 million people watching the rodeo on television.

Rodeo first appeared as an exhibition Olympic sport at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Native Americans are active in rodeo and have their own associations, see Indian rodeo.

Animal rights and animal welfare organizations are vocal critics of rodeos, because of reported injuries and distress to the animals involved. Dr. C.G. Haber, a veterinarian who spent 30 years as a United States federal meat inspector, described the animals discarded from rodeos for slaughter as being

“so extensively bruised that the only areas in which the skin was attached [to the flesh] were the head, neck, leg, and belly. I have seen animals with six to eight ribs broken from the spine and, at times, puncturing the lungs. I have seen as much as 2 to 3 gallons of free blood accumulated under the detached skin.”

Much of the criticism is incorrectly drawn to the spectacular, but generally harmless (to the animals) rough stock events: bull riding, bareback bronc riding and saddle bronc riding. The timed events such as calf roping and especially steer roping pose a greater likelihood of injury to the animals. The rodeo associations have made some changes to reduce the chances of injury, such as requiring older, heavier calves for calf roping, larger steers for steer wrestling and many rodeos no longer have steer roping. Animal cruelty in rodeos needs to be explored, but greater understanding of stock and stock handling would help focus the debate on the areas in which abuse is more likely to occur.


Here is a list of notable rodeos worldwide:

See also: calf; cow; horse; steer; straw man

External links

The word Rodeo is also used as a euphemism for a brothel.

Rodeo (in this context pronounced "roh-day-oh") is also a ballet written by Aaron Copland.


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