Arguably the biggest key to the remarkable longevity of the Lang Lang Rodeo is the overwhelming sense of ownership and pride that those involved take in the event. RUSSELL BENNETT sits down for a chat with two of the rodeo’s stalwarts.
“If we were running a rodeo in someone else’s yard it might’ve fallen over throughout some of the lean years, but the spirit of it is that we have this real heritage and we have a real responsibility to keep going.”
IT IS hailed as Australia’s longest continuous rodeo, and Alan Light hasn’t missed a single one since its inception in the mid-1940s.
A former president of the committee, Mr Light still helps make up the heartbeat of the event.
The Drouin resident vividly remembers going along with his family to the rodeo as a child in the event’s early years.
He remembers when the event used to attract up to 20,000 people and a special train service would run from Melbourne to Lang Lang just for the rodeo.
The thrills, spills and action-packed entertainment has kept him coming back year after year.
In a ‘People in Profile’ story in the Gazette back in 2010, Mr Light said rodeos were great events for communities and a great opportunity for a day out with a lively atmosphere and the chance to meet plenty of good people.
“It’s bringing a bit of outback Australia to the city people,” he said at the time.
It was during Mr Light’s childhood that his love of horses began and eventually led him to join the Lang Lang Show committee.
He has spent what seems like countless weekends over the years competing at local agricultural shows including at Pakenham, Neerim, Korumburra, Leongatha, Warragul, and Berwick as well as Lang Lang.
“I had just finished competing one day and two friends convinced me to join them at the Lang Lang Show committee meeting,” he told the Gazette in 2010.
“After competing for so many years I wanted to give something back.”
Current president Stephen Kent sat down with Mr Light this week to tell the Gazette just how the rodeo keeps returning year after year, after year.
“The special thing about the rodeo is that the showgrounds in Lang Lang are privately-owned,” he said.
“We keep running it for the enjoyment of it.
“If we were running a rodeo in someone else’s yard it might’ve fallen over throughout some of the lean years, but the spirit of it is that we have this real heritage and we have a real responsibility to keep going.”
The event has faced more than its fair share of challenges over the journey, such as the ongoing animal cruelty debate, and the equine influenza scare of 2008.
“I used to do a lot of community radio interviews (in the lead-up to the rodeo),” Mr Light said, sitting across from Mr Kent at his dining room table last week.
“The first question I’d get asked would typically be about cruelty to animals and my answer would be that you’re bringing outback Australia to the city people.”
Mr Kent added: “Farmers probably aren’t the soppiest blokes going around but we don’t like cruelty – no-one does.
“Cruelty to an animal is a horrible thing and I know very few who’ve ever thought it wasn’t and survived in the industry because if you hate your animals, you won’t farm.”
But it seems impossible to mention all the positives associated with the event.
“The camaraderie of it all has been absolutely fantastic,” Mr Light said.
Mr Kent said things would get a little serious on the day of the rodeo each year “because it’s important and there’s just so much to do, and a fair bit of pressure on.
“But we’ve got young ones who help – kids who’ve been helpers from 14 or 15 years of age – and they’ve got a really good rapport with people in their seventies and eighties and that’s priceless today because in suburbia, if you like, most kids only spend a little bit of time with their parents and the rest of the time with their own peers.
“But my own kids from 12 and 13 years old have got to know blokes who were born 60 or 70 years before them and I reckon that’s really good.”
Mr Light said the current show and rodeo committee “owe a lot to those first 14 in the late 1890s who decided they should have a show at Lang Lang.
“You go through towns and you see monuments remembering these kinds of people and I believe the showground is our monument for these people who set it up and it’s up to us to look after it.”
Mr Kent said there’d been an “unofficial policy” to never name anything at the showgrounds after any one person in particular “because there’s always someone else coming along and always other people”.
“None of the buildings are named after anyone or anything because things change all the time,” he said.
Mr Kent recalled how the rodeo started out with local steer riding, and the current rodeo still has a local steer riding event – with steers provided by local farmers.
The event has long been for locals, by locals, but Mr Kent explained how the reach had become much broader than that.
“Back in the day not a lot happened on Easter Monday and people from Dandenong, Melbourne, everywhere around would come,” he said.
“I still meet people from Melbourne saying: ‘Lang Lang? Oh we used to go there as kids!’
“In recent years we’ve had a good turn-up.
“It’s been on a lower scale but we’ve had a good turn-up and a really enjoyable day, and that’s the main thing – that everyone who comes enjoys it and wants to come back again.
“We’ve got the dog high jumps at lunchtime now, and we have some of the best competitors in Australia.”
Mr Kent and Mr Light went to the national rodeo finals the year before last up at the Gold Coast. They put on a presentation to recognise the oldest rodeos throughout the country.
“There were four committees and they did walk us out first,” Mr Kent beamed.
“There’s a little bit of jealousy about it, I reckon.
“There’s a dispute from a couple of others saying they were going earlier!”
Mr Light said it just went to show how much the Lang Lang committee was still respected.
“We’ve had entries from every state in Australia, from New Zealand and from Canada,” he said.
“Everybody knows about it.”
The Lang Lang Rodeo was established in 1944 and has operated annually on Easter Monday ever since.
For almost as long as man has ridden horses, rodeos have existed in some form. But the rodeo, as it’s known today, has its origins in Mexico and is based on a Spanish tradition.
According to ‘Rodeo at Lang Lang’, a publication written by Jim Ridgway (related to Mr Light) and Jim Lowden, “the Mexican vaqueros (cowboys) tended the cattle herds, and it was in this environment that they developed the language and equipment that is very much a part of the modern rodeo.
“The Mexicans drifted north into the US and before long the Yankee cowhands were influenced by the Mexican tradition.”
Mr Ridgway and Mr Lowden go on to explain that “travelling showmen brought the idea to Australia in the 1870s and 1880s and so the Australian rodeo became established.
“The First World War was a breeding ground for rodeo. Buckjump demonstrations were given in the Middle East, pending the evacuation of troops back to Australia after the war had finished.”
In their book, which was published in 1976, Mr Ridgway and Mr Lowden describe Lang Lang as “an area with strong historical association”. They explained that it’s situated “within the bounds of the old Yallock Station, which was taken up by Robert Jamieson and Samuel Rawson in 1839.
“Soon the area became well settled and it was not long before the Irish and English settlers were plying their old country pastimes. A race meeting was held at Eumemmerring in 1851, whilst the great fires of Black Thursday rushed towards the district.”
Mr Ridgway and Mr Lowden explain that a show was planned for 1944 at a committee meeting on 4 December 1943. The committee planned to stage an event called ‘The Steer Riding Championship of Australia’ and a Novice Steer Ride. The society also remembered the armed forces. It had a balance of just over 70 pounds and it moved that the sum be divided equally between the Yannathan and Lang Lang Welcome Home and Send Off committees.
Despite petrol rationing, more cars turned up to the show than ever before. The gate taking of 217 pounds was a record – and this figure didn’t include members’ tickets.
Leo Shallard of Healesville won the Steer Riding Championship of Australia, with Frank Kirkham from Hallam second and R. Woodridge from Maribyrnong third.
With this convincing success it was then decided to stage a separate rodeo and sports meeting, to be held on Easter Monday, 10 April 1944 – just two months after the show.
With plenty to see and do, the action-packed Lang Lang Rodeo starts at around 10am at the Lang Lang Showgrounds at 120 Westernport Road. The action continues until around 4pm. For more information visit www.langlangshow.org/rodeo.
