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Governor’s Conference on Aging and Home and Community Based Services Conference – Pages 78-85
All Nations Indian Relay Championship Promises Extreme Excitement In Billings
Photo provided by Nancy Harrison AdventureMedia.com
You will not want to miss the exciting action of Indian Relay Racing – thundering hooves, exquisite timing, strength, fearless determination, and unmatched horsemanship. From more than 50 teams the field has been narrowed to the final six teams competing in the National finals in Billings September 22-25.
By Bernice Karnop America’s oldest known competition, Indian Relay, has revived to become the world’s newest extreme sport. This race involves five or six Native American warriors in traditional regalia, racing around a track, bareback, leaping from one galloping horse to another. They race in the spirit of native pride and for bragging rights for the individual, his team, and their nation. Calvin Ghost Bear, from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, is on the board of the Professional Indian Horse Racing Association (PIHRA). He says the relay is unlike other sports. “The heart pounding, the hooves, the adrenalin, the crowd, the excitement – you aren’t going to get that anywhere else.” The PIHRA hosts the 2016 All Nations Indian Relay Championships at MetraPark in Billings, September 2225, 2016. The Championships are the culmination of 17 grueling competitions held June until September in Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, and Canada. Tribes represented in the relay include Oglala Lakota Sioux, Lower Brule Sioux, Eagle Butte Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Crow, Shoshone-Bannock, Eastern Shoshone, Nez Perce, Nakota, the Colville Confederated Tribes, and the Umatilla Confederated Tribes. During these qualifying races, PIHRA member teams earn points that lead them “on the road to Billings” and the chance to compete with the best of the best. Some describe it as the Super Bowl or World Series of Indian Horse Relay. The Horse Nations of the old order developed the relay separately within their various tribes as a way of sharpening their skills as horsemen. On a buffalo hunt, they may have exchanged horses in a hurry to keep up with the herd. In battle, they needed to be off one horse and on to a fresh one in a flash. These skills would help them catch wild ponies to increase their wealth and prestige. Indian Relay is a team competition comprising one rider, three horses and three courageous teammates to hold, catch, and control the two extra horses as the rider leaps from one to another. In effect, the rider is the relay “baton” passed from one racing horse to the next. Each horse makes a single circuit of the track. Teams execute these extremely difficult bareback transfers by stopping 1,200-pound horses from a full gallop, and starting others all within (Continued on page 42)