On Wednesday evening, Fantasy had tickets for us to attend the Chuckwagon Races and Evening Extravaganza at the Calgary Stampede. That was to start at 7pm, so we went a little early so we could walk through the grounds before the show was to start.
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We took the train from McMahon Stadium down to the Stampede grounds.
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Food area on the grounds
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"Interesting" sculpture in front of the BMO Centre
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Sculpture of a cattle drive crossing a river
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We wanted to visit the "Ag" areas, so went to the Agriculture Building -- there wasn't a lot to see there...
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... though we did see these Percherons getting dolled up to pull a hitch later in the evening.
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We also saw some "demonstration" animals including this pig with her 6-day old piglets.
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We made our way to our seats in the GMC Stadium. We were thankful to be in the shade (unlike those directly across the arena from us) and, although we were up in a higher section, we were in the front of our section.
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We were welcomed to the event and stood for "O Canada"
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The first event was the chuckwagon races. Here's a description from https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/rodeo/rode110e.html :
Chuck Wagon Racing
The first chuck wagon races were held in 1923 at the
Calgary Stampede. They are re-enactments of the round-up races that used
to take place after a round-up when the wagon drivers raced each other
to town.
Although the rules have changed a bit, the concept
behind chuck wagon racing remains the same. The competitor must break
camp and race around a 1/2- to 5/8-mile (0.8 to 1 km) track. Each race
team has one wagon driver and four outriders. One outrider's job is to
hold the lead horse steady while another throws a small barrel weighing
about 15 lbs. (6.8 kg) into the back of the wagon. The other two
outriders must throw the tent fly and poles into the back of the wagon.
At the sound of the horn, the wagon is loaded and the
driver must do a figure-eight around two barrels then race around a
track to the finish line. The four outriders must finish within 125 feet
(38 m) of the lead horse of their wagon. Time penalties are added to
the running time.
The ones we saw had only two outriders.
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Three wagons ready to start. At the sound of the horn, the outrider in the back throws a "stove" into the wagon to symbolize breaking camp.
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And... they're off!
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Out to the track...
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... all the way around...
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... back into the stadium to the finish line. The outriders are supposed to be within a certain distance of their wagon but it seemed like they were way behind a lot of times.
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We were there on the 7th day (of 10) of the Stampede. I think I understood that after 3 days of races, the order of the racers is set by how fast they did in the first 3 days, and the same after the 6th day. So, the later racers in the heats that we saw had the fastest times overall.
You may also notice that the three wagons in each heat have a slightly different distance around their barrels. The "1" barrels (towards the center of the arena) are called the "long" course, while the "3" barrels (near the side of the arena) are a shorter course. They use different horses depending on which course they are running on a particular night. In the 3-day cycle, each wagon will run each of the courses once (so if they ran "3" when we saw them, maybe they run "1" the next night and "2" the night after that).
The driver of the wagon and the horses pulling the wagon are from a certain ranch or team (I'm not certain whether they were all from ranches). The horses of the outriders are also from that ranch/team, but the outriders are just riders-for-hire that do the outrider duties (holding the lead horses before the start and putting the "stove" into the wagon). So the same outriders do every race (or that's what it sounded like!).
It was interesting, and something we had never seen before.
When the chuckwagon races were complete, the "Evening Extravaganza" was to start.
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First they moved this huge stage structure into the arena.
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Lights and fireworks
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Dancing and singing
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Drones made pictures in the evening sky
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An amazing fireworks show finished the evening -- we kept on thinking, "Oh this must be the finale" but it kept on with more and more and more fireworks!
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Our video may give you additional perspective -- it is 5 minutes 40 seconds long: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRZFjmqgos4
What a wonderful show!
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