Lyon County officialsban horse tripping

Appeal Staff Writer

Horse tripping will be banned in Lyon County, but steer tailing will not.

The Lyon County Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved an ordinance that would ban the practice of horse tripping, common at some Mexican rodeos, but leave steer tailing, another common activity at the events, alone, despite pleas from two animal activists.

Horse tripping is when a rider on another horse ropes the animal by the feet in the shortest distance ridden. Steer tailing is when a rider on horseback rides out of a chute and grabs a steer by the tail and flips him in the shortest distance.

Bob Rubis of the Tri-County Rodeo Events Association again said horse tripping did not occur at events he sponsors at the Dayton Valley Events Center, and steer tailing was no worse than bulldogging or steer wrestling, which take place at sanctioned rodeos.

But animal rights activist Tom Blomquist, of Silver Springs, said he believed steer tailing was cruel, unlike bulldogging.

"Anyone who thinks (steer tailing) is not cruel, invite me to your home and let me do that to your dog," he said.

Blomquist said he came from a rural background, was not a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and was not a vegetarian.

But he said he knew what cruel was.

"We cannot afford to be a Mecca for people to harm animals and call it entertainment," he said. "Some may say it's about culture, that we're not being politically correct. But some things that are cultural are not acceptable."

Commissioner Larry McPherson, who proposed the ordinance amendment, said steer tailing would not be banned.

"Nothing in the ordinance says anything about tailing," he said. "All we are doing is applying to the ordinance some stronger language."

Stagecoach resident Willis Lamm, of Least Resistance Training Concepts, a wild-horse advocacy group, said it's never appropriate to drag or physically redirect cattle by the tail.

"Steer tailing has a high probability for producing injury to the animal," he said, adding that it shouldn't be equated with bulldogging. "There's lots of large muscles on the neck (of a steer.)"

Rubis responded that you can break a steer's neck just as easily as you can break a steer's back.

• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 881-7351.