Rodeo
History
Rodeo is a
traditional North
American sport with influences from the history of Mexican
vaqueros (cowboys)
and Americancowboys.
Rodeo originated as an extension of the day-to-day lives of early
American cowboys; branding cattle and riding and training young bucking
horses made a natural progression to competition between the cowboys.
Bragging rights about who could stay on a "bronc-y" horse went from
passing the hat for the winner, to today's large purses at competitions
such as the National Finals Rodeo.
Rodeo events
include the rough stock events bull riding, bareback bronc
riding and saddle
bronc riding. The timed events include steer wrestling,team roping, calf roping,
the rarely seen steer
roping, and women's barrel racing,breakaway roping,goat tying
and pole
bending. The participants include cowboys, cowgirls and
also rodeo
clowns or bull fighters.
 Click on picture for video.
The oldest and
largest sanctioning body of professional rodeo is the Professional Rodeo
Cowboys Association (PRCA) which sanctions around 700 rodeos
annually. The Professional
Bull Riders (PBR) is a recent organization dedicated to Bull
Riding and puts on a number of events. There are also high school
rodeos, amateur rodeos, and rodeos for women. Some colleges, such as
the University
of Montana have a rodeo team. The National
Intercollegiate Rodeo Association is responsible for the College National
Rodeo Finals. Also available is the National High School
Rodeo Association (NHSRA). This organization offers
internationally competitive rodeo to high school students.
There are
numerous rodeos held throughout the
United
States and
Canada. Among the more
prominent are the Calgary Stampede;Frontier Days
in Cheyenne,
Wyoming; the National Western
Stock Show in Denver; the NILE Rodeo inBillings, Montana;Houston Livestock
Show and Rodeo in Houston, Texas;
and the National
Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The NFR is held each December at the Thomas & Mack
Center and features the top 15 competitors (in terms of
earnings) from each of the events. In 2003, it is
estimated that attendance at the 10 days of the National Finals Rodeo
will top more than 170,000 with another 12 million people watching the
rodeo on television.
Native Americans
are active in rodeo and have their own associations, see Indian rodeo.
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