After a 25-year absence, a Queenstowner’s wanting to reestablish the Wakatipu Rodeo Club, but says she’s between ‘‘a rock and a hard place’’.
Formerly hosting the ‘‘most enjoyable rodeos in the country’’, according to promoter Vanessa Sharp, the club went into recess in 1999 when the land its former home was on, at Arrowtown’s Butel Park, was sold and turned into a residential subdivision.
In 2021, Mountain Scene reported Sharp managed to secure land for the club to reform, but she’s since struggled to get the ball rolling.
The proposed new site for the club is on seven hectares of land opposite Gibbston’s Kinross, owned by American Samuel Belk.
‘‘At the beginning, we generated a lot of interest, roles had been established, there were talks with the council, but when it came to it, people were not ready to commit,’’ Sharp says.
The club had planned to donate all proceeds — aside from operational costs — to Riding for the Disabled and New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation, but they also struggled to get sign-off from neighbouring property owners.
Without that, the club would need to go through a pricey resource consent process, which is out of Sharp’s budget at present.
She says she’s between a ‘‘rock and a hard place’’, because she can’t fundraise more to establish the club without resource consent, so, for now, getting the club up and running again’s been put in the ‘‘too-hard basket’’.
While the sport can be controversial, Sharp believes if people understood ‘‘rodeo is not just running around and yee-hawing, throwing ropes all over the place’’, they’d be more supportive.
