| Extremists
from animal rights advocacy groups have caricaturized the Charro as the
“Bad & the Ugly” of the rodeo picture. They use their vast resources
in a calculated campaign of misinformation tailored to the thousands of
donors and not a few legislators that have been easily duped because of
their unfamiliarity with the realities of the millennium marriage between
man, horse and bovine. Examples of radical animal rights illusory fabrications
regarding the Charro in the USNA: sans a shred of evidence - they state
that illegal cock and bull fights are events preformed during charreadas;
Charros have killed thousands of horses and head of cattle each year for
decades; wires are used to trip horses over and over again until lame;
calves are roped by the head and feet causing paralysis, throat and neck
injuries, and broken bones (calves have NEVER been part of any Charro event
since before the first rule book was published in Mexico in 1860); alleged
rampart animal abuse by the Charro is correlated by the activists with
epidemic family violence. These are but a handful of fallacies voiced by
animal rights lobbyists - hitlerian propaganda that can only be documented
as pure fiction.
We
quote activist Cathleen Doyle from the California Equine Council; “If other
industries were tripping horses and we told the charros they couldn’t,
we’d be discriminating.” In California “horse tripping” is defined as;
“An act that consists of the use of any wire, pole, stick, rope, or other
object or apparatus whatsoever to cause a horse to fall or lose its balance.”
Notwithstanding this ruling the Wild Horse Race in which horses are caused
to fall and lose their balance is performed during western style rodeos
throughout California – no animal rights protests, no Animal Control citations,
no arrests by federales. Does this not then fit Ms. Doyle’s
definition of discrimination? Current California law describes “rodeo”
as a public performance featuring 3 or more events from bareback bronc
riding, saddle bronc riding, bull riding, calf roping, steer wrestling,
and team roping. Charreadas have been catalogued by California statute
as rodeo and as such must comply with AB1614 for example. If cowboy sanctioned
rodeos are exempt from animal welfare legislation so therefore must Mexican
rodeo, unless…someone has the influence or power to make fine distinctions
between the two which constitutes discrimination which is synonymous with
racism. If the important players on this issue fold their hand, the race
card stays on the table.
To
condense 487 years of borderless American equestrian history in 25 words
or less is a difficult enterprise so thank you for the patience given this
missive trusting it may help you to understand our position in opposition
of any ordinance that would proscribe internationally recognized Mexican
culture which is the Art of Charreria.
Respectively,
Edward
Ramirez
Contributor
– www.charrousa.com |
