The Vancouver Humane Society is leading the charge for changes at the Calgary Stampede after four horses died in just two days at the annual rodeo.
On Monday, one horse participating in the popular chuckwagon races had to be put down after it broke its shoulder. The same day, another horse in training for the races suffered a fatal heart attack.
Earlier, a horse in the novice saddle bronc competition bucked so hard, it broke its own back, and the night before, another horse died from a heart attack.
The stampede's Doug Fraser said that critics shouldn't be too hasty to makes connections between the four deaths.
"Of the four incidents, two of them were natural causes -- they're heart attacks. With these performance horses, it's not usual but it's not unheard of," he said.
But Peter Fricker of the Vancouver Human Society said that similar deaths occur every year.
"It's a very predictable event. Every year, animals die. Every year, the stampede makes its excuses and it carries on," he told CTV News.
The Humane Society is taking aim at the Stampede, commissioning a full-page ad in a Calgary newspaper focused on calf-roping, an event it would like to see banned.
"It's just unacceptable in the 21st century for us to be tormenting animals for human amusement," Fricker said.
He pointed to the Cloverdale Rodeo, which cancelled four events including calf-roping and steer-wrestling in 2007 in response to activist lobbying after an animal's death.
"We thought that with that success we would have a precedent, and it was important to go to the heart of rodeo in Canada," Fricker said.
But stampede organizers like Fraser say they're already getting a very different message from the public.
"Rodeo and chuckwagon events every day are virtually sellouts, so we know people are coming because they want to come," he said.
And the stampede says it's doing everything it can to care for its animals and ensure safety.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Maria Weisgarber
