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Well July seems to have passed without much comment here in ateabutnoe-land but in fact it was a pretty jam-packed month. Here is the first in a few catch-up posts

If it’s early July and it’s Calgary then it must be Calgary Stampede time. This year, as well as catching old favourite events like the team penning I was determined to go the rodeo for once. I had been avoiding the rodeo in previous years because I was a bit uncomfortable with some of the events like Steer Wrestling and Tie-Down Roping where hairy men jump off horses and wrestle with livestock. I don’t believe that animals have rights but I do believe hairy men have responsibilities and one of those has surely got to be, not to beat up animals for a laugh. But this year I decided to go and see for myself. Then the day after I had bought the tickets a Vancouver based animal welfare organisation took out a full page add in a local paper basically telling me I was a terrible person. Ho hum.

I decided that as I am unlikely to ever go to another rodeo I ought to get good seats so Sara and I were right up close, in the infield as they call it at the Stampede, only 7 rows back. Having seen the 2 dodgiest events up close you can’t fail to be impressed by the skill and bravery of the riders but I still wondered what is the point. On the day we went all the livestock got up and walked away but there was a small furore earlier in the week when one of the steers had its back broken and had to be put down. Can it I say, and make more room for some mutton bustin’. But leaving that unsavoury business aside the rest of the rodeo was amazing and in most events you felt the livestock give as good as they get. For someone growing up on the other side of the world rodeo is a bit of a cliche, familiar from a thousand tv shows, films and cartoons. Seeing it up close though, live with a crowd that knows what it’s watching is really exciting.

There’s the speed of the women riders in the barrel racing:

There’s bronco riding. With saddles:

and without..

And of course there is the bull riding.

I thought that you really got a sense of the size and power of the bulls when they stood there at the end without their rider waiting for the round-up. “1500 pounds of bovine bad attitude” was what the announcer called it.