Somehow I don't get the impression that this horse wants the cowboy to ride him.
I showed up in town early to get a good parking spot for the fireworks show later that night. I missed the small town parade this year, but there was a rodeo across town, so I went over to check it out. As in many cultures around the world, skills necessary for many families' livelihoods around here are demonstrated to others in the community. In the American West small towns practice that tradition through rodeo. This one was held in the tiny town of Bridgeport, California, population maybe 300, adjacent to 1000+ acre Big Meadow, where cattle are managed in the ways demonstrated in the rodeo. The participants are from roughly a dozen neighboring ranches. Events include "doctoring", roping and tying up the feet of a steer so you can vaccinate him against disease, and one where the cowboys get three sections of portable fence out of a trailer, then round up four steers into the trailer. This "bucking broncos" portion involves trying to ride a bucking horse for 8 seconds, a skill necessary to ride a horse for the first time. Most rodeos have events scaled down for children, so they can develop the skills needed to handle much larger cattle later on in life.
#independenceday #rodeo #bridgeport #July4 #Easternsierra
Somehow I don’t get the impression that the horse wants this cowboy to ride him…
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A closer look at the hooves tells us why :-/
+Jeff Sullivan How comes 🙂
KOOOOOL!
Strong!!!!
Ride em Cowboy!!!!!
If I was a horse forced to spend my life in servitude to human entertainment I would also want that animal abuser off my back. Rodeo is a despicable exercise; it's about nothing more than small-minded abusers getting their jollies by dominating vulnerable animals. Ironically, they think in doing so they are somehow 'manly'! It's truly pathetic.
YEP Gary you sure got that one nailed right!!!! I hate exploiting abimals for sure
Powerful action shot.
i am completely against rodeos
#myretinaslovethis
Ich mag horses,cowboys ♡♡♡♡
Stefan is Right!!!
Great shot, +Jeff Sullivan !
Same here Jena!
One of the front hooves does appear to have a split in it +Stefan G. Lesser , and the others don't appear well trimmed, so it does appear that this horse may not be particularly well cared for.
Having bred Arabian's, this horse looks like he has never seen a Farrier. I love Rodeo, but stressed horses colic easily. Wish they would stick to "bulls." They seem immune to stress.
magnifica
As for the notion that any domestication of horses is somehow cruel, horses developed in North America, but climate cooling in the Pleistocene epoch saw horses go extinct here 12,000 years ago. Fortunately a few crossed the Bering land bridge, and domestication, befriending humans and submitting to their care, turned out to be a spectacularly successful survival strategy which preserved horses as a species, then enabled them to flourish. Horses are fed, given shelter, and medicine by humans, their wild ancestors having gone extinct long ago without such care.
Having been brought to America most recently by Columbus and other explorers and re-introduced, the ones which have escaped and re-populated the open range face difficult survival odds, which is why mares give birth every year for a decade or so simply to keep the population going and replace themselves. Predation by mountain lions is high in their first year, and disease and starvation take many more before one survives to continue the species.
If the odds of survival are maybe 10% of reaching a few years old in the wild, and the rest of their existence is no picnic even if they do somehow survive there, living in domestication (even having a cowboy ride you for the required 8 seconds) may be a fair trade to remove the 90% odds of having a brief and very difficult life ending in a painful and violent death.
People can easily and glibly glamorize the concept of a domestic animal living a wild life instead of a domesticated one, but to truly understand that that means, read the account of Tim Treadwell getting killed and eaten by a brown bear (http://www.yellowstone-bearman.com/Tim_Treadwell.html), picture yourself in that situation (as a person or horse), then resume your explanation of how glamorous getting eaten alive by a predator is, and why these or any other horses should have to undergo that trauma instead of being fed, sheltered and cared for by humans. I've faced a threatening grizzly bear from a few paces away, I've been watched and followed by other predators, and I wouldn't wish that end on anyone or any animal.
I'm certainly no expert on rodeos +Jena Fabre, having only seen this one by chance a couple of times, but I do know that the people in it and watching it are simply residents from the surrounding ranches in this area. As we drive by the 1000 acre Big Meadow adjacent to the small site where this was held, the cowboys on that ranch use and exercise the same skills practiced in the rodeo. There may be rodeos somewhere which are spectacles put on by travelling performers, but every one of the people here were from a recognizable local ranch in this town of about 300 people.
Considering the alternatives, I often drive by feed lots in California's Central Valley, where 1000-2000+ cattle are raised in steel pens in 110 degree heat, standing on mounds of their own excrement sometimes reaching 20 feet high or more. These cattle are then marketed in grocery stores as "So-And-So Ranch Beef", as if they lived on the open range. It's more than a little sad that millions, perhaps most, cattle can live their entire lives that way in a feed lot. The cattle I see getting roped in Big Meadow and administered medicine are far better off, and that better life for cattle requires these local cowboys to have these skills.
Humans aren't going to pull out their canine teeth and give up being omnivores any time soon, and the cowboys caring for cattle on massive ranches and sleeping near them out on the open range certainly provide a much better life for the cattle than a huge number of them get on a feed lot.
This, specifically, is about rodeo being cruel, which it undoubtedly is. This isn't about the separate issue of domestication, which is also exploitation and abuse by humans towards our fellow earthlings for purely selfish and unnecessary reasons.
Nor would I…I agree with everything you said but horses need their hooves trimmed to prevent the "cracks" that occur from dryness or impact injury. To ignore this problem can cause a horse to become lame.
Horses are powerful and have served mankind in immeasurable ways but they have a delicate digestion and should be given the care for their well-being they deserve.
That does appear to be a concern +Dottie Hardage. The BLM rounds up so many wild horses each year to address overpopulation and overgrazing (and surely they'd be eager to throw off the first cowboy who tries to ride them), it specific horses for the rodeo, it that does seem unnecessary and unreasonable if they're not well cared for.
+Jeff Sullivan
i read what you said and it sounds like you are right, thinking about it rodeos don't seem cruel like i thought they were, i know about cruelty to horses living in Tennessee where the walking horses are, the things they do to the poor horses to make them high step like they do is very inhumane, the owners should be done like that, it hurts the horses terribly, thank you for making me think about rodeos and what goes on with cattle elsewhere too. have a wonderful day
Maravilloso!!!
That is just marvelous! What a great image of a cowboy & horse. I think you are so right the horse doesn't want him there! Thank you +Jeff Sullivan
great work, Jeff !
+Jeff Sullivan, did you block +Gary Ward ?
Agreed +Dottie Hardage, the horses in our care should be well cared for (and I do wonder if that split hoof is painful for the horse). I know that animal cruelty officers have prosecuted horse owners in this area who don't adequately care for their horses, so it makes me wonder what sort of oversight applies to rodeos. Was this a recently captured wild horse (one would hope on its way to better care), or does it travel with organizers who conduct rodeos (and shouldn't they be subject to the same animal care standards applied to other local residents)? It does raise questions.
+Martin Williams No, his comment still appears here, so not having blocked him should be patently obvious.
There are a number of comments flagged automatically by G+ as possible spam, but I do not derive any direct income from social media, I cannot spend my entire day here, so it is neither my job nor responsibility to cater to or restore the comments of everyone with an axe to grind, who want to drop by and argue.
I am a photographer, I take photographs of things around me, I share them, that's about the extent of it. If someone in some city around the world wants to "armchair quarterback" another region and culture that's their business, if that's what "floats their boat"… keeps their brain awash in addictive dopamine and endorphins). They are free to espouse whatever dogma they want on their own G+ streams.
However, I do reserve the right to curate reasonable conversations here, and if I do eventually choose to block someone, that's my right as well.
It is curious though that you ask if he's blocked while he clearly is not. What involvement with him does your question reveal? Does he rally followers to come to posts like this one and harrass the people who posted them, or the people who comment on the post (as you do here in the comments)?
I see now, there are 4-5 accounts posting exactly the same comments, many personally harassing another person who commented here. My mistake for engaging with them at all.
Yes, absolutely, they will all be blocked.