Rodeos are promoted as rough and tough exercises of human skill and courage in conquering the fierce, untamed beasts of the Wild West.
In reality, rodeos are nothing more than manipulative displays of human domination over animals disguised as entertainment.

It began in the early 19th century as a brutal masculinity skill contest among cowboys, which also became a show motivated by greed.

Despite the violence and pain that humans inflict on animals during rodeo events, they are considered to be family entertainment.
These events are thought of as a contest of will between contestants and animals, yet the wild and combative behavior of broncos, bulls and calves is artificially induced by painful measures of provocation.

In the calf-roping and steer-wrestling events, cowboys demonstrate their ability to capture and tie up calves and steers as fast as they can. Handlers prod and then release the calves from the pens. The frightened calf runs from the gate at twenty-five miles per hour, at that point the contestant lassoes the calf by the neck, snapping his head back as the calf comes to an abrupt stop.
A contestant in the steer-wrestling event chases the steer, and then grabs him by the horns and throws him down by forcibly twisting his neck and slamming him to the ground.

"So extensively bruised that the only areas in which the skin was attached (to the flesh) were the head, neck, leg, and belly. I have seen animals with six to eight ribs broken from the spine and at times, puncturing the lungs. I have seen as much as two to three gallons of free blood accumulated under the detached skin. These injuries are a result of animals’ being thrown in calf-roping events or being jumped on from atop horses during steer wrestling."
This description is from a veterinarian, who spent 30 years as federal meat inspector. Working slaughterhouses, he saw many animals discarded from rodeos to the slaughterhouse.

Rodeo employees and competitors were filmed, painfully twisting calves’ tails and sticking electric prods into their bodies, before the chute gates open, causing them to run in an attempt to avoid the pain.
Severe injuries caused to the animals, such as broken bones, massive bruising, and internal bleeding, are common. All in the sake of human's entertainment.

Calves can become paralyzed from severe spinal cord injury, and their tracheas can be totally or partially severed.

In the team roping event, two riders chase one calf.
The little calf runs as fast as he can, trying to escape from the riders.
The two riders have 90 seconds to “defeat” the helpless calf.
They rope him, one at the head and the other at the hind legs, and pull him in different directions at the same time.

Another example of "team work" - a steer is released and chased by 2 riders. One rider keeps the steer running in a straight line, while the other leaps from his horse and grabs the steer by the horns. He twists the steer's neck to force him to the ground. The contestant has 30 seconds from the time the steer is released to totally subdue him. Apart from the stress of this brutal act, this neck twisting injures the calf’s back and causes spinal injury.

In all bucking events, the aim of the riders is to stay on the animal for 8 seconds after he is released from the chute. Horses are ridden either with a saddle and lead rope or only with a girth strap and handle to hold on to (bareback). On bulls, a rope is pulled around the girth.

Only fear and pain make them buck. Electric prods, sharp sticks, caustic ointments, and other torturous devices are used to irritate and enrage animals used in rodeos.
All horses and bulls buck because of the flank strap that is pulled tightly around their groin. Animals do not buck because they are wild or mean. They buck because the flank strap causes them extreme pain. They stop bucking as soon as it is taken off.
Imagine a strap pulled tight around your groin, and you would understand why animals so frantically try to rid themselves of it.

Bucking horses can develop back problems from the constant pounding of riders on their backs. Constant jumping up and down can cause serious leg injuries, particularly tendon breakdown.

Mexican style rodeos are called "Charreades" and focus more on horsemanship. Flank straps are not used and bucking events are not timed, but there are events such as “El Coleo" (tailing) in which steers are grabbed by the tail and downed, sometimes knocking the animals unconscious or tearing their tails off.

As in every, non human animal exploitation system, animals in the rodeo industry, also suffer from the before and after rodeo events – the constant travel in cramped unventilated pens.
They are not fed and are usually not watered either during these journeys.

Eyewitness describes:
"The next calf was jerked by its neck in classical fashion. When it came to the end of its rope (the well-trained horse skidded to a stop), the calf spun up into the air and came down with a thump. The rope clearly constricted its neck to a mere, unbelievable fraction of its normal diameter. It looked like a cartoon character, but it still had enough airway open to let out a long, loud moan".
"One of the horses, while it was bucking, made a sound half way between a whinny and a moan, which I guess would qualify as a horse’s way of crying out for help".

What more do you need to know?
That in America, there are children rodeos, high school rodeos and college rodeos, events for the police, for the armed forces and even prison inmates? That there are even black, gay, and all-women rodeos?

How can humans consider beating up helpless animals as a sport?
Well, many people regard rodeos not just as sport but rather as family entertainment.
Obviously most humans don’t look at the relation between human and non human animals in judgmental eyes. However the violence in rodeo shows is very evident. It is much more evident than in circuses, for example, which even there, in spite of the efforts circuses make, to hide the violence it is not so hard to understand that when animals are doing unnatural actions, some veritably against their own physical structure, it could only be done by rough taming and violence. It could only be done by breaking the animals’ spirit.
Similar to bullfights, a lot of the violence and the oppression in rodeos are disguised, yet a lot of it is unconcealed. Totally visible to the entire family.
Though children don’t see the electric prods, sharp sticks, caustic ointments and the flank strap that is pulled tightly around the animals’ groins, they do see a bunch of people slamming a little calf to the ground after they have chased him while he was in panic, running for his life. Everybody can understand that the calf suffers extreme pain when he is being roped while he runs as fast as he can and suddenly being aggressively slammed to the ground. Not so hard to understand.

Rodeos are not entertainment. They are torture.
Humans don’t see it like that, not because of a good disguise, but because it is a part of the human race.
Humans are entertained from this violence, from this domination and superiority exhibition.

Humans seek for the power and dominance over other species and they enjoy it. There is no other way to explain the amusement children get from brutally murdering a bull or aggressively roping a calf.
Bullfights, circuses and rodeos are some sort of a celebration of humans’ victory over other species, a symbolic display of their tyranny.

We have to comprehend this. Enjoying such a brutal and violent shows, like rodeos, bullfights and circuses are a part of the human race’s nature.
You can try to convince people not to participate, you can try to promote legislation against those cruel acts, you can demonstrate, you can liberate a few animals, but you can’t change the fact that this is a part of the human race. Humans enjoy humiliating and hurting others - humans and non humans.
Stop fighting the symptoms, deal with the real problem.