Fantasy Caravan Day 6 - Calgary Stampede - Rodeo

On Thursday, Fantasy provided us tickets for the afternoon rodeo at the Calgary Stampede. Because we had been out late on Wednesday night (about midnight), we didn't get up too awfully early on Thursday.

Gracie in her spot at McMahon Stadium -- all the rigs around us were part of our caravan.

We took the train to the Stampede grounds,

... and visited the vendors inside the BMO Centre.

We walked down through food vendors outside...

... toward the Saddledome (which does *not* have Stampede events going on).

A selfie at the YAHOO sign

There were some guys doing motorcycle jumps outside the Saddledome that we stopped to watch for a few minutes.

We had heard that there were some horse show type activities going on inside one of the buildings and that it was air conditioned. We found a cutting horse competition going on inside the Nutrien Western Event Centre.

It was neat to watch the horses anticipate the moves of the cows.

You can see the horse and rider and steer in motion here:

After enjoying the cutting horse competition for a while, we made our way over to the GMC Stadium for the rodeo which was to begin at 1:30pm.

The opening included all of the contestants coming out onto the arena ground as "O Canada" was sung. (They are lined up across the middle of the arena.)

Some of the competition -- bareback bronc riding:

... and bull riding:

At the end of the rodeo, we headed back over to the Nutrien Western Event Centre...

.... where we got to see the Calgary Stampede Showriders.

This team of 10 young ladies (14-21 years old) are selected based on their horsemanship skills; they must own and train their own mount. (https://corporate.calgarystampede.com/foundation/programs/stampede-showriders)

A crossing X maneuver that they performed:

We decided that we had enjoyed all that we wanted to enjoy of the Stampede, and headed out to the train to head back to Gracie.