Originally Posted by vegasbound
This was not written by me (the quotation part anyways), it was written by a fellow barrel racer who does happen to professionally rodeo. She wrote this on her Facebook page and has encouraged people to share this. I'll add my own thoughts to this but please also note its 2 in the morning and I just got back from driving 15 hours from dropping a horse off in BC and driving back in the same day, so I may ramble/not be completely coherent in my thoughts.
"It seems that for every competitor involving any rodeo event as well as chuck wagon drivers, there seems to be two protestors that are louder and more vocal. They have the eye of the media & are informing other individuals who don't have the knowledge/understanding of the events, who's side they should be on! The protestors are doubling and tripling before our eyes every day...
I feel we as competitors need to become more vocal...I feel we as competitors sit back & complain about the changes being made in our sport yet wait for someone else to step up and fix the problems.... I feel it is time that we ALL come together, to get the information out that is needed to inform those that do not have a farming/ranching/rodeo or chuck wagon background to real truth to our sport as well as lifestyle!
I am not saying that there isn't people already vocal & pro active about our events. I am just saying more of us need to become pro active. Rodeo is changing, chuck wagons races are changing because the protestors are determined to shut us down! Should we not all band together and protect what we love?
If there are people reading this that are on the fence of who is right or who is wrong, when it comes to this topic, please take the following into consideration...
Back in the day horses were work animals, used to help the old homesteaders. They helped plow the fields, pull a buggy to town, helped fall timber. After the work was done they would go to the country fair with these same horses, to compete them against their neighbours. Just to see who's horse could out run & out work a cow, to see who had the best working horse around the county. They then (for example) started breeding Joe's champion race horse to Bill's champion cow horse because they wanted to create the best all around horse!
And you know what? People didn't protest at the jobs these horses did or at the sporting at the country fairs. There was no machinery back then to help get the work done, there was no TV & no iPhone's to sit behind and have a persons head filled with others revelations of what the real world should be like. Horses were the entertainment, and they helped put food on peoples tables. They also fought wars, and they helped shape the country we call home.
Our love and need for these animals hasn't left, even as equipment took their jobs away. So people started breeding horses even more specifically for traits to become better at a single job or a single event. I speak from a perspective as an owner/breeder & trainer of American Quarter Horses, we can actually track bloodlines all the way back to the foundation of the industry & see where the lineage broke off one direction for racetrack speed & the other becoming more cow horse. We also can see where the lines have come back together to create a more all around type horse.
If we take away the activities these horses are bred for, what then is the point of raising them at all? Should we just all have 1 to whatever number of horses, lets say 30, standing in our back yard un-trained, doing nothing, getting fat and foundering, so that some kid who would rather be playing with electronics ride it once a year? Or should we just let them die off and become extinct?
As competitors/owners we understand the value of these animals & every day we learn as well as research new feeds & health care to keep our horses feeling their best. Feed & veterinarian needs are always handled first before we would think of spending money on ourselves.
*Points made: I stuck with horses I raise/work with every day, but I am not dismissing other breeds, there are horses raised to be bucking horses, just like there are horses raised to be jumpers. And these horses love their jobs, I don't think you could convince a horse like Grated Coconut to be a backyard trail pony!)"
- FYI Grated Coconut is a Calgary Stampede owned bucking horse who has won many awards for top bareback and saddle bronc horse in the US and Canada. He's retired now and I'm 100% sure he is treated like friggin royalty at the ranch. Actually, I know that for a fact. And I know this is a chuckwagon thread, but the average bucking horse works for 120 seconds a year. 120 seconds. Probably less.
My thoughts: A lot of people in this thread have done a good job of presenting the pro-chuck side so I'm not going to really add to it. As rodeo competitors, chuck drivers and honestly, anybody in the horse business, we love our animals and we love our horses. We do treat them with the best possible care. That would be why I just paid off a very large vet bill to make sure my horse is at the best condition and not sore or in pain to make a run on the barrel pattern, and I'm eating ramen noodles and off the $1 menu at McDonalds. Steer wrestlers, calf ropers and chuck drivers do the exact same. Honestly, we have a lot of freaking money tied up in these horses, I can't think of a single reason we would treat them 'inhumanely.' To give a value, Perculatin aka Latte the horse that Mary Walker rides was purchased this year for $875,000. The average value of a horse that steps into the infield to compete in rodeo is northward of $60k. Probably way northward.
Our horses are athletes and we want them at their top condition, hence what we do from the best feed available, best vet care in the country and to the shoes we put on their feet and what kind of bit we put in their mouths. I can't count how many times I've turned out at a rodeo or barrel race because I didn't feel my horse was 110% getting off the trailer and either went home or ran a backup horse. I'm pretty positive chuckwagon drivers feel the same way, if that particular horse isn't feeling/looking 110% they will run another horse. Also- there is a rule in place and I don't know the exact number of days off the top of my head because its 2 am but a wagon horse and I also believe an outrider horse can only run so many days in a row before having a day off. And again, there are vet checks before every horse steps onto the track in chucks. If anyone is worried about 'drugs' or 'steroids' or 'masking agents' in chuckwagon racing, rodeo horses or even stock- there are preventative measures such as drug testing. I know the WPRA (Women's Professional Rodeo Association, the sanctioning body of the barrel racing) has strict guidelines of what can and can't be used and as barrel racers, we must follow this if we want to professionally rodeo. They tested randomly at Calgary last year and I'm going to assume they'll do the same this year and at random rodeos over the year.
When I was in high school my best friend at the time had a very nice rope horse. She retired him at 22 because she felt he didn't owe her a dime and he could live out the rest of his life in retirement. That horse ran up and down the fence line every time she pulled out of the yard and he wasn't in the trailer. Eventually she started taking him along because he got himself so worked up (and yes, there was another horse in the same pasture as him) and took him out of retirement. I don't think I've seen a happier horse than the day she backed him in the roping box after pulling him out of retirement.
I'll finish it with this statement- I honestly wish people would realize there is more than one side of a coin. This goes for 99.9% of the 'issues' out there in real life too, not just rodeo and chuckwagon racing. There is a reason for doing what we do, why we do it. Please do not jump to conclusions or believe what you read/hear, just because you saw it on Facebook or in the media. Next time someone has questions, please do ask someone knowledgeable and in the business and you might just be surprised at the answer you get.
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