At the first rodeo in my life, I found myself cheering — and wondering why

It’s hard to find things in life that make one almost unable to hold on for eight seconds, but what happened in this roughly two acres of space defied the odds, as competitors moved through events like steer wrestling, team roping, saddle bronc riding, calf roping, breakaway roping, barrel racing and bull riding. 

For outsiders like me, the whole spectacle could be paraphrased as either taming or staying on the animal.

I was especially excited to watch barrel racing and breakaway roping, which women competed in. I was surprised, though, that they stumbled more than they did in parts of the competition that appeared more fierce but were handled with more ease. My friend next to me, who was even more excited than I was, and I shouted for them, recording videos and showing all our support for the girls even if they fell, were slower or missed the shot. 

We know that every hard-won seat at the table comes with a struggle, and behind every score lies things that are more meaningful than the numbers on the board. Other than nostalgia for the Old West, national identity, masculinity, patriotism and all the other reasons that made rodeo the state sport of Montana, there are more nuanced lenses that allow us to see different communities fighting for a place in the sport. 

Female riders spent decades striving against being treated unequally in this male-dominated arena in history, raising funds and awareness for women in the arena until today, according to the Women's Professional Rodeo Association. As a new convert to the world of rodeo, I was happy to see the sport becoming more inclusive. 

Other parts of the rodeo stimulated all my senses, making hours of competition fly by. I held my breath for every rider before they rushed into the field through the bucking chute. On the jumbotron, I saw that the animals beneath them were scraping their hooves against the dusty ground, implying the latent anger and power within them that was about to burst. 

Those last few seconds of waiting was often harder for me to watch than the competition itself. I imagined what it's like to be in their position, and thinking of a million instinctive excuses not to face this wild thing I’m about to do. But everyone showed incredible courage and commitment by heading forward without any hesitation as the whistle sounded. A bucking bull stepped on one cowboy, but after only a minute of lying on the ground with the medical team crowded around him, he stood back up. 

During team roping, one pair of contestants won first place with a score of 3.7 seconds. The cowboy on the buckskin horse surged ahead of his teammate on the brown horse — the pair closed in on the racing steer from both sides, one raised his rope and swung it overhead, catching the steer’s legs in the blink of an eye, bringing it down and leaving it unable to move. 

I recorded every bit of this in my phone, ready to share it immediately on social media. However, my finger was a little stiff when I went to hit the send button, because I was staring at the scene shown on my screen. 

Watching these commanding men subdue the steer again and again, bringing it to heel as cheers erupted across the arena, stirred something complicated in me. As a reporter, much of my work involves empathizing with lives, especially communities whose circumstances are far removed from my own, including animals. I often find myself wary of anthropocentrism, a philosophical mindset that put human beings the central or most significant entities in the world, questioning whether, amid the achievements celebrated by the mainstream or those in positions of power, there are perspectives that remain unseen.

How humans treat livestock has long been a source of controversy, something I have encountered repeatedly in my previous reporting on industrial farming, toxic gas emissions and the reuse of livestock waste. So I instinctively wondered what these cattle and horses made of what these humans were doing — building up their tension to release them into the arena, then chasing them down and catching them over and over.

After the rodeo, I tried to look deeper into these issues. 

There seem to be few systematic reviews discussing rodeo injuries for either humans or animals. From what I found from a 2001 American Veterinary Medical Association report, many cowboys make the weekly injury list, but an on-site survey of 21 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeos found only 15 animals injured in 26,584 performances, a 0.00041% rate. More recent PRCA welfare material has reported an injury rate around 0.04%, with high standards of care of the livestock based on reports from veterinarians working PRCA events.

Of course, there are other perspectives. Though not much discussion on rodeo animals, I saw a research study that showed that trained observers consistently perceived calves as showing more negative emotional states while being chased during roping and more positive or relieved states afterward. Similar results shown in a peer-reviewed study in 2016 concluded that calves, whether trained or untrained, showed physiological stress responses like increased cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine after both ordinary arena marshalling and rodeo-style roping.

It’s common that I feel torn up by different sides of a story. Living in our respective information cocoons, people can never be fully informed. All I can do is just keep thinking while experiencing, staying curious and being grateful.

By the time I left the arena, MontanaFair still glittered in neon. Cheers rose and fell from the drop tower, and rows of food stands stretched down the midway in pools of light. My friend and I bought chimney cakes. I ate while walking quietly forward. I allowed every feeling, whether admiration or empathy, to sit in the same seat for now.