April 21, 2025
DEAR FRIENDS,
Saturday’s steer tailing event in Rochelle, Il was disastrous. We are still pouring over all the footage we got, but we unfortunately saw the brutality first hand.
At least two different steers had a back leg badly broken. At least two other steers were lamed. One horse had an open wound on its side from sharpened spurs. Three steers were degloved (a severe injury where the skin and underlying tissues are ripped away from the muscles, connective tissue, or bone underneath). And we noticed several steers with bleeding horns, indicating that they had had their horns trimmed, but were not given appropriate time to heal.
As we have been reviewing the video, we have been able to count one steer being run 16 times. Once is too many times, but 16 is unbelievable.
We called the Rochelle Police, but they would not respond due to this location being “out of their jurisdiction”. However, when there was a medical emergency for someone at the event, of course then the police were able to show up.
