Cloverdale Rodeo and Country Fair is an annual rodeo and fair located in the town of Cloverdale in Surrey, British Columbia. It is held annually at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds during the Victoria Day holiday weekend, from the Friday to Monday.
Attendance in 2006 was over 20,000.[ citation needed ]
The fair was first held in September 1888 in the Surrey Municipal Hall and grounds. In 1938, the fair was moved to its current location at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds.
The rodeo was first held in 1945 and proved so popular that it was taken over by the Lower Fraser Valley Agricultural Association in 1947.
In 1962, the fair was taken over by the Fraser Valley Exhibition Society, and in 1994, the fair and rodeo were renamed the Cloverdale Rodeo & Exhibition Association.
In 1996, the 109-year-old annual fall fair was incorporated into the May rodeo weekend.
In 2007, after controversy over the death of a calf, the rodeo announced that it would drop four timed events, thus disqualifying itself from the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association (CPRA) circuit.
There was no fair and rodeo from 1917 to 1918 because of World War I and from 1942 to 1944 because of World War II. It was cancelled again from 2020 to 2022 because of COVID-19 restrictions. It returned in 2023.
There are cooking, baking and canning competitions, arts and crafts displays and horticulture and livestock exhibits.
Since 1977, on the Thursday before the Fair, there has been a bed race in downtown Cloverdale, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. The races went virtual in 2020–21.
A parade is held on the Saturday of the Fair, and a midway hosts games and rides.
For children, there are 4H club displays and children's entertainers.
The rodeo is an annual target of animal rights activists, who allege that bucking straps, electric prods, spurs and physical abuse are used to terrorize the animals into action. [1] For the past several years, animal right activists have moved their protests into the arena, using banners and handcuffing themselves to the gates of bucking chutes.
In 2007, activists from Vancouver, British Columbia animal rights group Liberation BC entered the rodeo ring to protest the death of a calf in a roping event at the previous day's show. [2] Pamela Anderson targeted the Cloverdale Rodeo that same year by writing a letter urging corporate sponsors to end their partnership with the rodeo, stating that "the calf roping event is particularly cruel". [3] Following this controversy the Cloverdale Rodeo announced that it would cut ties with the professional circuit by dropping four timed events including: tie-down roping, team roping, cowboy cow milking and steer wrestling. [4] Cowboy cow milking was discontinued as a Canadian Professional Rodeo Association event after 2009.
Rodeo is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States, western Canada, and northern Mexico. Today, it is a sporting event that involves horses and other livestock, designed to test the skill and speed of the cowboys and cowgirls. American-style professional rodeos generally comprise the following events: tie-down roping, team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc riding, bareback bronc riding, bull riding and barrel racing. The events are divided into two basic categories: the rough stock events and the timed events. Depending on sanctioning organization and region, other events such as breakaway roping, goat tying, and pole bending may also be a part of some rodeos. The "world's first public cowboy contest" was held on July 4, 1883, in Pecos, Texas, between cattle driver Trav Windham and roper Morg Livingston.
Bull riding is a rodeo sport that involves a rider getting on a bucking bull and attempting to stay mounted while the animal tries to buck off the rider.
Bronc riding, either bareback bronc or saddle bronc competition, is a rodeo event that involves a rodeo participant riding a bucking horse that attempts to throw or buck off the rider. Originally based on the necessary buck breaking skills of a working cowboy, the event is now a highly stylized competition that utilizes horses that often are specially bred for strength, agility, and bucking ability. It is recognized by the main rodeo organizations such as the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) and the International Professional Rodeo Association (IPRA).
Calf roping, also known as tie-down roping, is a rodeo event that features a calf and a rider mounted on a horse. The goal of this timed event is for the rider to catch the calf by throwing a loop of rope from a lariat around its neck, dismount from the horse, run to the calf, and restrain it by tying three legs together, in as short a time as possible. A variant on the sport, with fewer animal welfare controversies, is breakaway roping, where the calf is roped, but not tied.
Steer roping, also known as steer tripping or steer jerking, is a rodeo event that features a steer and one mounted cowboy.
Rodeos have long been a popular competitor and spectator sport in Australia, but were not run on an organised basis until the 1880s.
The National Finals Rodeo (NFR) is the premier rodeo event by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA). The NFR showcases the talents of the PRCA's top 15 money-winners in the season for each event.
The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) is the largest rodeo organization in the world. It sanctions events in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with members from said countries, as well as others. Its championship event is the National Finals Rodeo (NFR). The PRCA is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States.
Cloverdale is a town centre in the city of Surrey, British Columbia, a southeastern suburb of Greater Vancouver, located just west of the City of Langley. The town centre was initially founded as a small farm community in 1870 for its fertile land and temperate climate. Cloverdale eventually amalgamated into Surrey as one of its six town centres.
The Cloverdale Fairgrounds are located in the town of Cloverdale in Surrey, British Columbia. Since 1938, it has been the host site of one of Canada's largests rodeos, the Cloverdale Rodeo.
The Raymond Stampede is an annual rodeo held in the town of Raymond, Alberta, Canada on July 1. It is recognized as Alberta's oldest rodeo and Canada's oldest professional rodeo, predating the famous Calgary Stampede by ten years.
History of rodeo tracks the lineage of modern Western rodeo.
Steer riding is a rodeo youth event that is an introductory form of bull riding for younger riders, usually between the ages of seven and fourteen. Instead of bucking bulls, the children ride steers that buck. Steers are used because they are known to have a less volatile temperament than bulls and many breeds weigh less than bulls, which makes them a perfect stepping stone to junior bulls. The steers usually weigh between 500 and 1,000 pounds. Steer riding usually follows mutton busting and calf riding as the participant ages and grows. Many young and aspiring bull riders who train in steer riding compete in the National Junior Bullriders Association.
Liberation BC is a non-profit animal rights organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, founded in 2004. It is run entirely by volunteers, including the board of directors, and has an e-mail network of nearly 4000 supporters. The stated mission of Liberation BC is "to expose animal exploitation through outreach and education, to promote a vegan lifestyle as the most effective and attainable way to protect animals, and to build and provide support for a strong community of effective animal advocates."
A stock contractor is an individual or business that provides animals for rodeo competition. Stock contractors supply roughstock - horses for saddle bronc and bareback bronc riding and bulls for the bull riding event, plus steers for steer wrestling and team roping, plus calves for calf roping events. Use of stock contractors who specialize in providing these animals has produced a more uniform range of bucking stock which are also quieter to handle.
The Heart of the North Rodeo is located in Spooner, Wisconsin. The Rodeo takes place the first full weekend in July every year since 1954, except 2020. Spooner Rodeo fans will always see a different act every night, as each rodeo is never the same. Fans from all over come to watch the professional cowboys and cowgirls compete in the 7 main events of rodeo, and even some up and coming little cowboys and cowgirls.
A ranch rodeo is a traditional type of rodeo in which teams of cowboys or cowgirls from different ranches compete against each other in events based on the type of work they do every day.
V-61 was a hall of fame bucking bull known only by his brand, V-61. In 1970, he was the Bucking Bull of the NFR. In 2012, the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame inducted V-61. In 2015, the Bull Riding Hall of Fame inducted him into its inaugural class. In 930 attempts, only four bull riders managed to complete rides on him for a total of five qualified rides. His owner retired him in January 1974 and he died later that year.
The Canadian Professional Rodeo Association (CPRA) is the governing body of professional rodeo in Canada. Its championship event is the Canadian Finals Rodeo (CFR) held every November.
Wanda Harper Bush was an American professional rodeo cowgirl. She competed in the Girl's Rodeo Association (GRA), now known as the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA), and won two barrel racing world championships, in 1952 and 1953. She was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 1978 and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2017. The August 2017 induction ceremony was ProRodeo's 38th annual event, and marked the first time in the event's history that the class of inductees included barrel racers from the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA).