This is the greatest sports spectacle of our time...

“Here, bracingly, is a sporting event that’s considerably more than a non-aficionado would anticipate. The speed of it seems ridiculously reckless, and the proximity of these rampaging animals and their flimsy freight – to each other, and especially to you – appears flat out insane. You’ll be tempted to take a few steps back, but with a bit of tensing you’ll fight it off, and after the nail-biting finish you’ll be left with an adrenal tingle in your extremities that’ll last through all but the longest of Grandstand beer lines. At some point in the race, you might even be tempted, without provocation nor a trace of irony, to bellow, ‘Yee-haw!’ See? That’s where it came from.”

As these folks affirm, there is nothing like chuckwagon racing. The races are a controlled runaway. It is an endeavour rich in glory and disappointment, insignificance, and notoriety. The training. The barns. The horses. The families. The sponsors. The camaraderie. The pressure. The feuds. The community needed to run a wagon outfit. The element of catastrophe. The endless possibilities born of the western sky.

Like the shoes fitted onto their horses, chuckwagon cowboys were forged and hammered into resolute, steelyeyed, determined men. The measure of these Canadian cowboys has little to do with saloon fights and quick draws, and everything to do with how they conduct their lives centred around a dirt oval. Their numbers are few (less than 100); they truly are a breed apart. They sass, they fight, they cry. They eat dirt, spit desire, raise hell, and yet possess a compassion for horses that sees them wiping tears away with their shirt’s mud-splattered cuffs.

These cowboys train some of the fastest racing Thoroughbreds in the world to pull their 1325-pound racing chuckwagon. These horses who race, do so by choice. If they do not naturally want to run and want to compete, they will not stay long with a chuckwagon outfit. With times measured to 1/100ths of a second, it is a true collaboration between horses and cowboys.

From re-imaging the high-spirited natures of old west cowboys, to the controversy it ignites today, chuckwagon racing demands attention. It is gripping. It is enthralling. Anything that spirited, and that inimitable, is bound to stir and ignite the audiences’ opinions and emotions. The cheering, confrontation, and celebration it kindles, reflects the energy pulsing in every race.

And it is at the Calgary Stampede where this energy beats like nowhere else. Within sight of the Elbow River, chuckwagon racing owes its origins to the Calgary Stampede. And it is at the Calgary Stampede where chuckwagons are followed and showcased on a scale like no other. With upwards of over 11 million spectators having watched Stampede chuckwagons, arguably, they are the most well-attended race in Canada’s history. Across the west, there are other chuckwagon races, but the Stampede was, and is, the event defining horse and teamster greatness. The best horsemen in the world are marked by earning a Stampede victory. There is no higher or more coveted accomplishment.

It is also the only professional sport unique to Canada. Canadians solely compete, support, and champion chuckwagon racing at this level. While sports like hockey and lacrosse have been embraced by other nations, chuckwagon racing is Canada’s own. No other families on the planet excel at chuckwagon racing like Canadians.

Around Calgary’s oval track, chuckwagon racing’s women and men have collectively lived their life’s circle. Chuckwagon racing is not just a sport, it is a culture. From conception in the parked motorhomes and Stampede barns, to fatal injuries on the track, and everything in between, the Stampede has witnessed the entirety of the chuckwagon community’s passions, frailties, tragedies, and glories. It is where the supreme moments of their lives are lived amidst the daily rhythm of feeding and bathing horses, raking and cleaning stalls, scrubbing harnesses and drying them in the sun.

It is a tiny tribe on the wagon trail. The sport’s high costs repeatedly require the capital foundation of a wagon family for the next generation to race. It is also very connected. Traveling and working so closely together, relationships bloom between young men and women of wagon families, creating an interconnected web of relationships. Marrying, working, playing, fighting, and laughing, the involvement of entire families is rare amongst pro sports. The Calgary Stampede is the catalyst and the centrepiece to the chuckwagon family’s human journey.

The story of chuckwagon racing is a tale worth hearing. Westerners, at times, champion values and a lifestyle in a different tune. Carrying an independent swagger sometimes divergent to attitudes seen in other parts of Canada and America, westerners can appear brash, blustery, and full of braggadocio. But these families north of the ‘49 carry on the enterprise of wagon racing in a uniquely Canadian way. Allowing for present perceptions, the Calgary Stampede’s chuckwagon races are a Canadian treasure, and an extraordinary event on the international stage. WHR

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