Rodeo is farmer animal abuse
Barbed wire fencing was invented in the 1880s. Prior to that livestock simply ranged free. It was the job of cowboys to move stock along to fresh pasture or to keep stock safe from predators and generally keep the cattle in the right place.
Every year great herds of cattle would undertake long journeys to sale yards, railheads or processing plants. These cattle would literally traverse halfway across the United States over many months across miles of unfenced land.
These cattle drives would move through Indian reservations, encounter cattle thieves, and hostile local farmers.
These cattle routes would pass towns such as Dodge City where tired and armed cowboys would descend into the saloons and brothels. Add names like Doc Holliday, Wyatt Erp and Billy the Kid and the fuel for Hollywood movies were made during this time. Cowboys weren’t just in the wild west of the US, but also in South America and Australia where cattle drives would move from the Northern Territory across to Western Australia sale yards.
The real work of cowboys in those days was far less romantic and exciting than the movies make out.
Essentially the same jobs that modern cattle farmers perform today.
There were good cowboys and average cowboys, and the way you determined who was the best cowboys was at the rodeo.
Typical cowboy skills like breaking in horses, catching individual animals and various tests of horsemanship were tested at the rodeo. The rodeo was a celebration of their country way of life.
Today, around 200 years after the first cowboys started to emerge, the rodeo is still a part of country life around the world.
If you travel into rural New Zealand, it won’t be long before you see a farm ute with a giant RM Williams logo stretching across the back window. This Texan longhorn logo lets the world know that the driver is a cattle wrangling, horse riding, Speights drinking country boy or girl. Or at least they want to be.
RM Williams was foundered by a real Australian outback cowboy and is a brand making boots and clothing for people real cowboys and girls.
The brand is now owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. LVMH owns many of the world’s most luxurious brands such as Moet and Chandon, Chateau d’Yquem, Christian Dior and TAG Heuer.
LVMH only buys brands that are aspirational, steeped in tradition, history and feeling. Because people pay lots of money for brands with those attributes.
RM Williams has all of those qualities. RM Williams is also rodeo and rodeo is also based on a long history with tradition and lots of feeling.
For many country people, this way of life and all it stands for is their identity.
The country people who attend rodeos secretly wish their workdays were spent with a hardy stock horse beneath them just like an RM Williams advert.
Instead, they ride a quad bike within the confines of a fully fenced farm. It’s not romantic, it’s uneventful and boring.
Animals are sorted in welldesigned yards and cowsheds. The animals are often drafted automatically by a computer. There’s very little running and yelling and you certainly won’t hear the crack of a horsewhip or see a lasso.
In fact, if a dairy farm worker was to jump aboard a quad bike and chase a calf at full gallop into the paddock, lassoo the calf, hit the brakes, abruptly halting the calves momentum via its neck, fling it to the ground and then dive on top of the animal, they would probably be sacked on the spot because we don’t treat animals like that on farms anymore.
Farmers go to great lengths to tell the public that they care for their animals and treat them well and most do.
Then across the country, they hold public rodeos, where animals are treated in a far worse manner than any modern farmer actually does.
Rodeos are essentially full-page newspaper adverts of farmers poorly treating animals.
For these country folk, asking them to get rid of rodeo is asking them to let go of part of their identity.