Some forms of animal abuse are not only immoral, they're also just plain dumb. Top of the list for transparently pointless acts of lowbrow brutality are certain rodeo events.

Take the wild horse race, which is a staple of many Canadian and American rodeos, including B.C.'s own Williams Lake Stampede. It's difficult to describe, but an online video captures its idiocy pretty well. Rodeo promoters will tell you that the horses love their "work," but anyone can see these horses are in distress.
...
But the times may be a changin'. The science of animal behaviour has begun to expose the phoney rodeo myths. In the last two decades, Temple Grandin, the distinguished animal behaviourist, pioneered work that discovered how cattle and horses really think and how they can be managed more humanely. In 1997 she summarized her new approach to livestock handling in the New York Times: "We've got to get rid of cowboy rodeo stuff, the yelling and screaming at them."

--
full story:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/ Science+dispels+claim+that+rodeos+aren+cruel/3008151/story.html