Horses die during Calgary Stampede trail ride

One horse was reported yelling "Not another barrel race!" before jumping off the bridge.

Does the stampede get a lot of flak from animal rights groups? Not that this story likely had anything to do with animal 'abuse'....

   

To answer your question, yes the Stampede is picketed daily by various animal rights groups.

Since 1986 the Humane Society has worked with the Stampede Board to implement changes to improve the safety of the animals and the riders in events such as the Chuck wagon races.

Maybe not in my lifetime but eventually I believe you will see the erosion of the traditional Stampede and it will become yet another summer carnival.

   

That was a little sad, I saw a picture in the Herald today of one of the bodies covered up by the Bow river. Who's idea was it by the to do that for the centenial? Not much can be said about their intelligence, whoever it was. I've seen tame horses freak out over nothing, let alone 200 wild ones, must have been a gong show.

   

[font=Comic Sans MS] [/font] These 9 horses dying is definitely a tragic event, and is going to put a lot of stress on the organizers of the stampede to get rid of the rodeo. Without the rodeo the stampede will neither be as big, or as exciting as it has been in the years past. The rodeo is the reason for the Stampede, and the stampeding of the horses marks the start of the stampede annually. If we were to remove the rodeo from the stampede, it would be like taking all body contact out of hockey, it would just suck! Animal rights activists would have the right to strutinize the Stampede if the owner and riders treated the horses poorly. But, the fact is that those horses are treated like kings. The horses get blankets over their backs for god sake, I would be surprised if there were more horses with blankets than kid's with blankets in third world countries. My point is, the rodeo should stay a part of the stampede forever. Enough said!

   

Nothing wrong with horses being in the Stampede working, they do worse when left to themselves in paddocks half the time. If there is anything a horse can get itself hung up on or it's leg stuck through it will.

The people that were driving them through that tunnel should be thrown off the fuckin' bridge though.