The Cootamundra Rodeo has been cancelled.
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The rodeo would have been the first held in town since 2012, but a lack of sponsorship and the amount of work still needing to be done has forced the organising committee to call it off.
But while the rodeo events planned for October 6 have been cancelled, gymkhana competitions will still go on.
Cootamundra Rodeo president Francis Ross said he was disappointed that the event had been called off, but the organisers felt they had no choice.
“We just didn’t get the sponsorship we’d been hoping for,” Mr Ross said.
“We’ve also been flat out doing work on the rodeo grounds and there was still a fair bit to do.
“We just felt like we were up against it and just weren’t going to get every done.”
The committee is now focusing on its gymkhana program, with an eye to running a rodeo in 2019.
“We really wanted to have it this year, but were just up against it.”
The program of six gymkhana events in 2019 is being increased to eight and there are now plans to run an extra one in November 2018.
These gymkhana events provide the committee with the money it needs to repair and upgrade the rodeo ground, Mr Ross said.
These improvements would continue in the months leading up to the 2019 event.
News of the cancellation has been posted on the organising committee’s Facebook page.
Secretary Adelle Cropley said the decision had been extremely difficult to make.
“We are just not getting enough support,” she said.
“Every time there is a working bee, the same five men turn up to do the work.”
Mr Ross said this was not an unusual scenario for voluntary groups.
“It’s like every committee, you get the same half a dozen people turning it,” he said.
“It’s like the football or anything else.”
Before the novice rodeo held in 2012, Mr Ross said there had not been a rodeo held in Cootamundra since 2006 or 2008.
Cootamundra has long-held linked to rodeo events.
Bob Holder, the man described as Australia’s oldest cowboy, who has seven decades of competition under his belt, hails from the town.
Mr Holder competed in his first rodeo rodeo, at Tumut in 1945, and won the novice bronc riding event.