
Before the chuckwagon races, Marley Daviduk and her friend Samantha Baskerville ran across the track in front of a very full Grandstand at the Calgary Stampede and bicycle-locked their necks to an infield fence. The two members of the Vancouver Animal Defence League unfurled signs in violent red: “BLOODSPORT” and “NO MORE DEAD HORSES.” They’d been planning this for more than two years. People noticed. There were laughs and boos. It didn’t take long for Stampede staff to see the women and cover them with a tarp.
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I guess Clark didn’t like my line of questioning, because she soon accused me of having a preset agenda (which I didn’t). She then tried to make me feel like an ignorant urban candy ass—or maybe I just felt that way already from being around all this leather, sweat, and swagger. Who knows.“Ninety-eight percent of society have no contact and no context around large livestock… which makes the Stampede more essential than ever,” Clark said. “As a reporter, I get to go and ask the experts questions and really delve in deep, versus you—you might ask a few cursory questions here and there.” Could she tell that this offended me? Maybe not. “Look at our rodeo as a whole,” Clark added, “and judge it by its entirety.”So that’s what I did.The Stampede is a spectacle: 18,000 people, most in cowboy hats, seated and standing and drinking in the early afternoon around an arena that smells faintly of hot tarmac, beer, hay, sweat, and shit. There’s a lively announcer, rodeo clown antics, and plenty of plugs for sponsor. There are even beautiful blonde women in bright outfits who ride around the ring between events while people shout, talk, cheer, and laugh in the summer sun.My media pass gets me close to the action. And if you’re the type who’s looking for cruelty, you can find it. There’s a guy standing next to the chutes in
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Saddle bronc, bareback, and bull riding all operate on a similar premise: tighten a flank strap around a wildly bucking animal’s hindquarters (not its balls as a lot of people believe), then hang on for dear life. For Stampede animals born and raised on a ranch, you’re bred to buck. Then you’re sent down to Calgary and squeezed into a tiny chute. Then suddenly some guy jumps on your back and the chute opens and—bam—the strap tightens and spurs dig into your sides and you jump and kick while people in the stands cheer when all you’re really trying to do is get the fucker off and get the strap loose. (“The flank strap,” PR lady Clark says, “is fuzzy sheep’s wool” that “tickles” the horses “sensitive underbelly” to encourage bucking). God forbid you break a limb or don’t perform, then it’s off to the processing plant. Mmm horse meat.
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So I see and experience all of this, but—believe it or not—I also start to get it too. The rodeo is one of our last true bloodsports, a distinctly North American nod to the chariot races and animal hunts of ancient Rome’s coliseum. It’s man vs. nature at its most primal, a reminder of what kind of skills it took for our species to come out on top—a domineering sport pioneered by wild west daredevil cowboys who probably couldn’t have cared less about what the bull felt when they jumped on its back. And today’s competitors are skilled—there’s no denying this. So skilled that rodeo can be an art. I’m talking about Fred Whitfield swinging a rope or the perfect grace of a one-handed bull ride, the cowboy in control (not flapping around like a pathetic ragdoll), and riding in his crisp John B. Stetson hat, even after the buzzer goes, then jumping off the raging animal and landing on his feet with the bull calming right down and trotting out of the arena as though it’s all in a day’s work. That’s the ideal, I guess, but rodeo usually isn’t so graceful and smooth.There’s a paradigm split as wide as Alberta is long between those up in arms for the animals and those who darn well are gonna rodeo until the cows come home. And it’s funny too—continued protests only seem to spur on the Stampede’s “we care so much about the animals” rhetoric. OK, they take protective measures and mitigate risks, but let’s not deny it: rodeo is cruel. How could it not be? Call a spade a spade, I say—rodeo is as mean as it gets, but it’s also a hell of a lot of fun. @dsotis