Rodeo (/ˈroʊdiːoʊ/ or /roʊˈdeɪ.oʊ/) is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States, western Canada, and northern Mexico. Today it is a sporting event that consists of events that involve horses and other livestock, designed to test the skill and speed of the human cowboy and cowgirl athletes who participate. Professional rodeos generally comprise the following events:tie-down roping, team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, bareback bronc riding, bull riding and barrel racing. The events are divided into two basic categories: the rough stock events and the timed events. Depending on sanctioning organization and region, other events such as breakaway roping,goat tying, or pole bending may also be a part of some rodeos.
Rodeo, particularly popular today within the Canadian province of Alberta and throughout the western United States, is the official state sport of Wyoming,South Dakota, and Texas. The iconic silhouette image of a "Bucking Horse and Rider" is a federal and state-registered trademark of the State of Wyoming. The Legislative Assembly of Alberta has considered making rodeo the official sport of that province. However, enabling legislation has yet to be passed.
Bucking horse at the Calgary Stampede
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| Highest governing body | Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association |
|---|---|
| First played | 1872 |
| Characteristics | |
| Mixed gender | Yes |
| Categorization | Outdoor or indoor |
n North America, professional rodeos are governed and sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) and Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA), while other associations govern children's, high school, collegiate, and senior rodeos. Associations also exist for Native Americans and other minority groups. The traditional season for competitive rodeo runs from spring through fall, while the modern professional rodeo circuit runs longer, and concludes with the PRCA National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas, Nevada, now held in December.
Rodeo has provoked opposition from animal rights and animal welfare advocates, who argue that various competitions constitute animal cruelty. The American rodeo industry has made progress in improving the welfare of rodeo animals, with specific requirements for veterinary care and other regulations that protect rodeo animals. However, rodeo is opposed by a number of animal welfare organizations in the United States and Canada. Some local and state governments in North America have banned or restricted rodeos, certain rodeo events, or types of equipment. Internationally, rodeo is banned in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, with other European nations placing restrictions on certain practices.
Etymology
The American English word "rodeo" is taken directly from Spanish 'rodeo ([roˈðe.o]). Which roughly translates into English as "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 process the used by vaqueros to gather cattle for various purposes, such as moving them to new pastures, separating the cattle owned by different ranchers, or gathering in preparation for slaughter (matanza). The term was also used to refer to exhibitions of skills used in the working rodeo. It was this latter usage which was adopted into the cowboy tradition of the United States and Canada.
The term rodeo was first used in English in approximately 1834 to refer to a cattle round-up. Today the word is used primarily to refer to a public exhibition of cowboy skills, usually in the form of a competitive event.
History of rodeo
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Many rodeo events were based on the tasks required by cattle ranching. The working cowboy developed skills to fit the needs of the terrain and climate of the American west, and there were many regional variations. The skills required to manage cattle and horses date back to the Spanish traditions of the vaquero.
Early rodeo-like affairs of the 1820s and 1830s were informal events in the western United States and northern Mexico with cowboys and vaqueros testing their work skills against one another.Following the American Civil War, rodeo competitions emerged, with the first held in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1872. Prescott, Arizona claimed the distinction of holding the first professional rodeo, as it charged admission and awarded trophies in 1888.Between 1890 and 1910, rodeos became public entertainment, sometimes combined Wild West Shows featuring individuals such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, and other charismatic stars. 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 large venues such as Madison Square Garden playing a part in popularizing them for new crowds. There was no standardization of events for a rodeo competition until 1929, when associations began forming.
In the 1970s, rodeo saw unprecedented growth. Contestants referred to as "the new breed" brought rodeo increasing media attention. These contestants were young, often from an urban background, and chose rodeo for its athletic rewards. By 1985, one third of PRCA members had a college education and one half of the competitors had never worked on a cattle ranch.Today, some professional rodeos are staged in large, air-conditioned arenas; offer large purses, and are often telecast. Many other professional rodeos are held outside, under the same conditions of heat, cold, dust or mud as were the original events.
Women
Historically, women have long participated in rodeo. "Prairie Rose" Henderson debuted at the Cheyenne rodeo in 1901, and, by 1920, women were competing in rough stock events, relay races and trick riding. But after Bonnie McCarrol died in the Pendleton Round-Up in 1929 and Marie Gibson died in a horse wreck in 1933, women's competitive participation was curbed. Rodeo women organized into various associations and staged their own rodeos. Today, women's barrel racing is included as a competitive event in professional rodeo, with breakaway roping and goat tying added at collegiate and lower levels. They compete equally with men in team roping, sometimes in mixed-sex teams. Women also compete in traditional roping and rough stock events at women-only rodeos.
Competitive events
Professional rodeos in the United States and Canada usually incorporate both timed events and "rough stock" events, most commonly calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc and bareback bronc riding, bull riding, and barrel racing. Additional events may be included at the collegiate and high school level, including breakaway roping and goat tying. Some events are based on traditional ranch practices; others are modern developments and have no counterpart in ranch practice.
Rodeos may also offer western-themed entertainment at intermission, including music and novelty acts, such as trick riding.
Timed events
Roping
Roping competitions are based on the tasks of a working cowboy, who often had to capture calves and adult cattle for branding, medical treatment and other purposes. The cowboy must throw a type of rope with a loop, known as a lariat, riata or reata, or lasso, over the head of a calf or onto the horns and around the hind legs of adult cattle, and secure the animal in a fashion dictated by its size and age.
- Calf Roping, also called Tie-down roping, is based on ranch work in which calves are roped for branding, medical treatment, or other purposes. It is the oldest of rodeo's timed events. The cowboy ropes a running calf around the neck with a lariat, and his horse stops and sets back on the rope while the cowboy dismounts, runs to the calf, throws it to the ground and ties three feet together. (If the calf falls when roped, the cowboy must lose time waiting for the calf to get back to its feet so that the cowboy can do the work.) The job of the horse is to hold the calf steady on the rope. A well-trained calf-roping horse will slowly back up while the cowboy ties the calf, to help keep the lariat snug.
- Breakaway roping - a form of calf roping where a very short lariat is used, tied lightly to the saddle horn with string and a flag. When the calf is roped about the neck, the horse stops, the flagged rope breaks free of the saddle, and the calf runs on without being thrown or tied. In most of the United States, this event is primarily for women of all ages and boys under 12. In places where traditional "tie-down" calf roping is not allowed, riders of both genders compete.
- Team roping, also called "heading and heeling," is the only rodeo event where men and women riders compete together. Two people capture and restrain a full-grown steer. One horse and rider, the "header," lassos a running steer's horns, while the other horse and rider, the "heeler," lassos the steer's two hind legs. Once the animal is captured, the riders face each other and lightly pull the steer between them, so that it loses its balance and lies down. This technique originated from methods of capture and restraint for treatment used on a ranch.
Other timed events
- Barrel racing - is a timed speed and agility event. In barrel racing, horse and rider gallop around a cloverleaf pattern of barrels, making agile turns without knocking the barrels over.In professional, collegiate and high school rodeo, barrel racing is an exclusively women's sport, though men and boys occasionally compete at local O-Mok-See competition.
- Steer wrestling - Also known as "Bulldogging," is a rodeo event where the rider jumps off his horse onto a Corriente steer and 'wrestles' it to the ground by grabbing it by the horns. This is probably the single most physically dangerous event in rodeo for the cowboy, who runs a high risk of jumping off a running horse head first and missing the steer, or of having the thrown steer land on top of him, sometimes horns first.
- Goat tying is usually an event for women or pre-teen girls and boys; a goat is staked out while a mounted rider runs to the goat, dismounts, grabs the goat, throws it to the ground and ties it in the same manner as a calf. The horse must not come into contact with the goat or its tether. This event was designed to teach smaller or younger riders the basics of calf roping without requiring the more complex skill of roping the animal. This event is not part of professional rodeo competition.
"Rough stock" competition
In spite of popular myth, most modern "broncs" are not in fact wild horses, but are more commonly spoiled riding horses or horses bred specifically as bucking stock. Rough stock events also use at least two well-trained riding horses ridden by "pick up men" (or women), tasked with assisting fallen riders and helping successful riders get safely off the bucking animal.
- Bronc riding - there are two divisions in rodeo, bareback bronc riding, where the rider is only allowed to hang onto a bucking horse with a type of surcingle called a "rigging"; and saddle bronc riding, where the rider uses a specialized western saddle without a horn (for safety) and hangs onto a heavy lead rope, called a bronc rein, which is attached to a halter on the horse.
- Bull riding - an event where the cowboys ride full-grown bulls instead of horses. Although skills and equipment similar to those needed for bareback bronc riding are required, the event differs considerably from horse riding competition due to the danger involved. Because bulls are unpredictable and may attack a fallen rider, rodeo clowns, now known as "bullfighters", work during bull-riding competition to distract the bulls and help prevent injury to competitors.
Less common events
Several other events may be scheduled on a rodeo program depending upon the rodeo's governing association.
- Steer roping - Not listed as an official PRCA event,and banned in several states, but quietly recognized by the PRCA in some areas. It is rarely seen in the United States today because of the tremendous risk of injury to all involved, as well as animal cruelty concerns. A single roper ropes the steer around the horns, throws the rope around the steer's back hip, dallies, and rides in a ninety-degree angle to the roped steer (opposite side from the aforementioned hip). This action brings the steer's head around toward the legs in such a manner as to redirect the steer's head towards its back legs. This causes the steer to "trip". Steers are too big to tie in the manner used for calves. Absent a "heeler," it is very difficult for one person to restrain a grown steer once down. However, the steer's "trip" causes it to be temporarily incapacitated allowing its legs to be tied in a manner akin to calf roping. The event has roots in ranch practices north of the Rio Grande, but is no longer seen at the majority of American rodeos. However, it is practiced at some rodeos in Mexico, and may also be referred to as "steer tripping."
- Steer daubing—Usually seen at lower levels of competition, an event to help young competitors learn skills later needed for steer wrestling. A rider carrying a long stick with a paint-filled dauber at the end attempts to run up alongside a steer and place a mark of paint inside a circle that has been drawn on the side of the animal.
- Pole bending, is a speed and agility competition sometimes seen at local and high school rodeos. It is more commonly viewed as a gymkhana or O-Mok-See competition. In pole bending, the horse and rider run the length of a line of six upright poles, turn sharply and weave through the poles, turn again and weave back, then return to the start.
Other activities
Outside of competitive events, other activities are often associated with rodeos, particularly at local levels. A typical rodeo begins with a "Grand Entry", in which mounted riders, many carrying flags, including the American flag, state flags, banners representing sponsors, and others enter the arena at a gallop, circle once, come to the center of the arena and stop while the remaining participants enter. The grand entry is used to introduce some of the competitors, officials, and sponsors. It is capped by the presentation of the American flag, usually with a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and, depending on region, other ceremonies. If a rodeo queen is crowned, the contestants or winner and runners-up may also be presented.
Variety acts, which may include musicians, trick riders or other entertainment may occur halfway through the rodeo at intermission. Some rodeos may also include novelty events, such as steer riding for preteens or "mutton busting" for small children. In some places, various types of novelty races or events such as wild cow milking are offered for adults. Such contests often are unregulated, with a higher risk of injury to human participants and poor treatment of animals than in traditionally-sanctioned events, particularly if consumption of alcoholic beverages by participants is permitted.
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