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The history of rodeo in Australia.
So, the year is 1953, a champion
rider named Alan Woods climbs over
the metal railings of his chute and
takes up position on the back of
another champion, a mare called
Curio.

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Woods secures his grip on the Bronc
Rein, a rope attaching him to his
adversary and the only tool he has to
achieve his objective of remaining on
her back for the next eight seconds.

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Curio pants heavily bracing for the
chute gate to open and her chance to
buck furiously and dismount her rival
which would see her remain the
undefeated champion buck-jumper.

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The chute gate swings open and the
battle begins.

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As curio bucks twisting and turning,
a storm of dust fills the air and
Woods is thrown up and down above her
eight seconds. What must seem like a
lifetime to the duelling pair,
eventually passes and when the dust
settles. Woods is still miraculously
in position atop curios back and in
doing so has become the most famous
Australian bronc rider of his time.

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Today, Bronc riding is one of many
types of competition that take place
at Australian rodeos.

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These are big events that show off
the skills of cowboys and count girls
and often draw in thousands of
spectators to country towns in
Outback Australia.

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But how,when and where did these
adrenaline-fuelled social events in
rural parts of Australia begin?

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Let's begin with a little Australian
ungulate history.

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Horses and cattle first arrived on
Australian shores with, you guessed
it, the British colonists and
convicts of the First Fleet in 1788.

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The horses had been born in Cape Town
in South Africa and included a
stallion, four mares, a colt and a
filly.

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The cattle were black Cape cattle and
included four cows and two bulls.

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The cattle, though, had different
ideas from their masters. The small
herd of cattle decided to go
walkabout and disappeared into the
bush soon after its arrival, to the
great dismay of the colonists.

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The story didn't end there, though.

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Only seven years later, in 1795, the
inhabitants of Australia's first
settlement received interest on their
lost cattle. When several herds
comprising now over 100 head of
cattle were discovered across the
Napoleon River, turning the disaster
into a modest beef gold mine.

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This was also the initial evidence of
just how the livestock would easily
be able to thrive in the lush
pastures of New South Wales, not to
mention that you would need some
talented stockmen and drovers to keep
track of the cattle, which would feed
Australia's growing settlements in
the future.

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So, the first livestock brought to
Australia were for practical purposes
related to work and transport,
assuming that when they walked off
the ship they didn't run off into the
bush straightaway. They weren't used
for recreational riding and racing
which were yet to become major
activities.

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In fact, it would be a good 60 to 70
years after the arrival of Europeans
in Australia that Aussie rodeos would
first take shape in the Outback at
the hands of those early stockmen and
drovers. These guys pioneered the
first overland stock routes and the
vast sheep and cattle stations in the
north of the continent.

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At the time, no other sport could
claim such a strong link to the
everyday skills and practices carried
out by these stockmen and drovers.
Riding a rough horse and working with
wild cattle was all in a day's work
for these men, who earned a crust in
the Bronco yards of many outback
stations and would have been more
than keen to compare their abilities
and show off their talents.

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Most stations boasted an untamable
horse that no man could hope to mount
and thus any man who claimed to be a
decent rider was sure to put his
skills to the test on such a beast.

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Out of these displays of masculinity
on the stations of Outback Australia
was born the Australian rodeo, which
today can trace its lineage back some
odd 150 years to the very first
informal challenges between renowned
Rough Riders. Horse breakers and
outlaw buck-jumpers.

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Even though it wasn't all about ego
and bragging rights that were often
earned by being the longest rider on
a furious stallion or bull.

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In fact, the best rough riders often
escaped the daily grind of working on
sheep and cattle stations and could
go on to make it big and earn a crust
from exhibitions and rodeo
competitions around Australia.

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It was only by the year 1855 that the
term 'buck-jumping' started to really
circulate in Australia.

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'Buck-jumping' referred to the
activity of riding horses, those
horses who most vehemently wished to
remain riderless, where the riders
objective was to remain in the saddle
for as long as possible before being
thrown off into the dust.

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The early buck-jumper riders weren't
yet called 'cowboys', which was the
American term at the time but instead
they were known as 'rough riders'.

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Australian 'cowboys' were actually
the cattle station workers, usually
young boys or old men, who handled
the milking cows and did general
duties around the homestead.

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In the 1980s, newspaper reports
started to record public rough riding
events which were taking place in the
colonies of Victoria and New South
Wales.

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One of the earliest recorded events
was run in 1888 by the National
Agricultural Society of Victoria when
they held a rough riding competition
at their annual show.

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Throughout the 1890s, there were many
Australian and some international
Wild West shows travelling around the
continent.

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One such show was Worth's Wild West
Show, which travelled Australia until
the banks crashed in 1893.

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After this, they then decided to go
and earn a living travelling around
England India Malaysia New Zealand
South Africa and South America.

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Proprietors such as Thorpe
McConville, as well as talented
buck-jumpers like Lance Skuthorpe,
The Gill family, Bibby Bros and Colin
MacLeod ran many of these travelling
Rough Riding shows around Australia.

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The travelling rodeos rapidly grew in
popularity providing spectators with
a rare chance to view the skills of
stockmen as they displayed the
talents they had honed during life on
a cattle station as they battled with
the beasts with which they work.

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The competitions at these early
Australian rodeos were based off
specific stockman skills, including:
the ability to stay on your horse for
as long as possible and the ability
to capture feral or wild cattle.

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The main events at rodeos included:.

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Buck-jumping - also known as 'Bronc
riding' or 'Saddle broncs'. An event
that involves a rodeo participant
riding a bucking horse, sometimes
called a bronc or bronco, that
attempts to throw or buck off the
rider. Originally based on the
necessary horse breaking skills of a
working stockman the event is now a
highly stylized competition that
utilizes horses that are often
specially bred for strength, agility,
and bucking ability.

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Bullock riding - effectively the same
thing as buck-jumping, but done on a
large bull, though, without a saddle,
just a rope that the rough rider can
hold on to with one or two hands.

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Campdrafting - a unique Australian
sport involving a horse and rider
working cattle. A rider on horseback
must cut out one beast from the mob
of cattle in the yard, or 'the camp',
and then block and turn the beast at
at least two or three times to prove
to the judge that they have the beast
under control. Then they take it out
of the yard and direct it through a
course around pegs involving right
and left hand turns in a figure
eight, before guiding it through two
pegs known as 'the gate'.

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Bulldogging or Steer Wrestling - a
rodeo event in which a horse mounted
rider chases a steer, drops from the
horse to the steer, and then wrestles
the steer to the ground by grabbing
its horns and pulling it off balance
so that it falls to the ground. This
event carries a high risk of injury
to the cowboy.

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And lastly Wild-cow milking - This is
a team based competition where the
goal is to catch and milk a wild cow,
a semi feral animal that is not used
to being milked by people, usually of
a beef cattle breed and they have to
do this in as shorter time as
possible.

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So, these rodeos continued to grow in
popularity through the early nineteen
hundreds and were usually held in the
main country towns of the cattle
country. Having spread across the
eastern states of Australia and South
Australia .

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One of the biggest events in the day
was in 1927 when an estimated 50,000
or so spectators were drawn to a
rodeo that was organised in Adelaide,
South Australia.

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When the Great Depression occurred
during the 1930s, many of these
travelling shows went bust and only a
few soldiered on and kept travelling
around Australia.

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Melbourne staged a Wild West Show in
1934, which hired the best Aussie
riders as well as a number of
visiting Yankee cowboys.

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Due to the success of the rodeo
events at the Melbourne Show, the
Royal Agricultural Society of New
South Wales planned an international
rodeo for its 1935 Sydney Royal
Easter Show in the hopes of
attracting bigger crowds than ever
before.

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In 1930, the town of Warwick in
Queensland added the American style
contests of clowns ropers and trick
riders to its programme, in an
attempt to attract even more public
interest.

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During World War II, many Queensland
towns such as Charters Towers,
Goondiwindi, Hughenden, Ingham,
Rockhampton and Toowoomba held rodeos
to raise much needed money to aid
returned soldiers and hospitals.

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By the end of World War II, there was
a revival of these carnivals and the
tradition of donating proceeds to
local charities, service
organisations, and sporting clubs was
born.

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Some small town rodeos such as those
held at Bourketown in Queensland,
with a tiny population of 173 people,
still showed themselves capable of
raising significant funds and once
raised around $36,000 for the Royal
Flying Doctor Service.

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In 1944, Sydney had become the
epicentre of 'Australian rodeo' with
competitions that attracted all of
the nation's top roughriders, plus
American cowboys from Arizona,
California, and Texas.

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By the late 60s, influence from
America had left its mark on these
Australian events. They were now well
and truly known as 'Australian
rodeos', where the Aussie word
buck-jumping had been replaced by the
American equivalent "rodeo".
Australian roughriders were now known
as 'cowboys' and they rode broncs
instead of buck jumpers.

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However, influence from the United
States didn't stop there. American
clothing now also replaced the
previously worn Australian R.M.
Williams clothing. This is
unsurprising considering that America
and Canada were both many decades
ahead of Australia in developing and
promoting rodeos as professional
sports and entertainment.

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In the year 1977, the town of Mount
Isa in Queensland held a major rodeo,
which drew in 30,000 people and in
the September of 1978 riders from all
countries all over the world
including the USA, Canada, New
Zealand and Australia competed in the
World Rodeo Titles at the showground
for $60,000 worth of prize money.

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The Royal Agricultural Society (RAS)
Show in Sydney held rodeo
competitions in 1980 between
Australian and Canadian Rough Riders
and have continued to have other
international competitions.

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In 1982, an Australian Bushmen
Carnival Association team competed in
the North American Rodeo Commission's
Championships in Denver, Colorado
finishing, sixth overall.

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The Australian rodeo tradition has
carried on until today, where the
successes of these first daring
stockmen and drovers take their
chances week after week on the highly
competitive pro rodeo circuits
touring not just Australia, but also
Canada and the United States.

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Rodeo culture is now a firmly
cemented traditional part of Aussie
Outback life and sporting heritage.

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It's one of the biggest sporting and
social highlights of each year for
many rural and regional communities
in Australia, where millions of
dollars for community charities and
projects are raised every year.

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Today, rodeos are generally held
during the spring and summer periods
and are typically arranged to avoid
date clashes so that their
competitors can take part in as many
events as possible.

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.The biggest one takes place in
Queensland, with the National Titles
Rodeo held on the Gold Coast every
single year.

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Some of the large events in New South
Wales are at Tamworth, which hosts a
huge rodeo at the Australian Equine
and Livestock Events Centre.

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And in Omeo, Victoria, each year
there's a large rodeo with lucrative
prize money for the bronc riding
competition.

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For all of these events, the prize
money is usually obtained from
donations and entry fees, with the
main prise money reserved for the
open campdraft event.

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So, it seems clear to me that through
Australia's younger colonial history,
the Australian rodeo has represented
the beating heart of the Outback:
where men and beast are pitted one
against the other; where any
hardworking young man or young woman
can forge a path from cattle station
to professional rider in the
spotlight on tour around the country
or even the world; where for a few
days a year the smallest of towns can
overflow with the activity of a city;
and where rural Australians come
together for a good time and often
throw their money and support behind
a good cause.

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So, if the chance ever arises, guys,
go and check out an Australian rodeo.

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So, at the start there, we mentioned
Alan Woods and the mare Curio and I
thought that I would read a poem
called 'The Legend of Alan Woods and
Curio', written by A. Gale.

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In Outback Australia, nestled well
out of the way,

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A monument of a horse and rider I
came across one day,

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It stood back from the roadside there
for all to see,

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I knew that here without a doubt was
a piece of history.

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Well, I've never been a horseman, but
I respect the men who are,

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Whenever there is a rodeo they come
from near and far.

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Now this is the tale of Alan Woods
and a little Brumby mare,

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Who fought their way into history,
one the rodeo circuit there.

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Curio was three years old, in 1945,

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Macumber station was here home for
that's where she was sired.

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They sent her off to Marrabel this
wild wild bucking mare,

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To remain unridden and for eight
years and become a legend there.

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Curio was the feature horse at
Marrabel each year,

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Where the best of all Australia were
invited to appear.

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In October 1953, young Alan Woods was
there.

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To make his name forever in an answer
to the dare.

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Now ten seconds isn't very long when
you try to hold your breath,

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But it feels like eternity on a
cyclone dealing death.

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A mighty roar rose from the crowd as
dust flew from the course,

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Some cheering for the rider, some
cheering for the horse.

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The bucking style of Curio was
something grand to see,

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A legend in a lifetime that was now
in a memory.

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She died in 1970 at the age of 28,

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Leaving behind four fighting sons to
follow in her wake.

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Alan Woods was a household word that
spread across the land,

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If Harry Morant were there that day
he'd have surely shook his hand.

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While many noted riders were there on
the day too,

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But none as proud as Alan Woods
before the day was through.

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And so, I left the monument of the
man and horse out there,

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With flying hooves, flaring nostrils
and dust that filled the air.

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And I fancied I could hear the crowd
of people cheering still,

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With the squealing, bucking Curio,
sounding loud and shrill.