Chuckwagon Racing — Treat or Tragedy?
Published by GHC • Jul 26th, 2007 • Category: Junior Blogger Archives, Take a Standby Cassie, age 11
On the last Saturday of the Calgary Stampede three more horses died in another Chuckwagon race. Now the question is, should Chuckwagon racing be allowed in the Stampede anymore?
The Calgary Stampede is a large, non-profit festival, exhibition, and rodeo held in Calgary, Alberta for ten days in the second week of every July. It is one of Canada’s largest annual events, and the world’s largest outdoor rodeo. It features an internationally recognized rodeo competition.
Chuckwagon racing is an event at some rodeos, mainly in Western Canada. Chuckwagons are raced around a figure eight barrel obstacle, and the stove and tent poles within the wagon must not be lost. The racing team also has four “outriders” who load the tent poles at the start and must finish the race with the Chuckwagon.
This is not the first time an accident has occurred that takes the lives of horses. These accidents have started to occur yearly. With so many horses dying in the wrecks, what is the future fate of the Chuckwagon horses that run in the races?
Few people are sure of what caused the accident. From what was caught on tape it looks like the wagon was coming around the corner at a very fast speed when it spun out of control. The wagon stopped in the middle of the path of another and the two collided. It was horrific to watch the horses fall. Now the question is — should we give up a Stampede tradition, or should we take the risk of more horses dying to carry on the tradition?
The question remains unanswered.
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That’s not very nice! Those horses were probobly squashed to death by those carts!
Cassie, that sounds awful. Did you personally watch this happen? If it’s such a huge issue with horses dying wouldn’t the Humane Society get involved? Anyway, I think this should be stopped because not all traditions are worth keeping. :(
I agree with Julia. It’s not worth horses getting killed just to keep up such a dangerous tradition. It’s more cruelty than racing by the looks of things.
It is sad when things like that happen, but it’s not exactly cruelty. Those horses love what they do or they wouldn’t do it, and the people that drive the wagons love their horses probobly more than they love themselves. In some cases it is cruel, but in others you have to be symthetic for the poeple as they deal with their loss. I will not say it is wrong but I won’t say it’s right either. :-/
I agree with BarrelRacer! It’s the same with flat track racers but we don’t close the racetrack now do we? But I loved your blog and agree it is VERY dangerous and in some cases cruel so I think they should make it more safe like only have one team go at a time and time them.
I think that it is not a treat. It is a big tragedy. I just hate those kinds of things that hurt horses so much!
I agree horsejo,but it is true that it is an accident.Julia,the reason the Humane Society won’t bet involved with thuis is because it’s a national sport and only the track officials have the authority to suspend the riders.That is the best they can do but usually the reason horses die is because there are six horses per cart and they’re all determined to win.If one rope gets twisted then there is a accident so it’s a very dangerous sport,especialy for the horses for they will kill themselves doing what they love.
Syd,one of the reasons why people watch the chucks is because there is the excitment of races that are horse against horse.There would also be a lot of outriders out of business because their job is to ride around the track behind the chucks.At the end of the race if the teams outrider is not at one hundred feet or less behind their team the team automaticly goes to last place.The only way that the sport could be made safer is the races to be stopped altogether which will probably not happen because of all the fans,or the number of horses per chuck being reduced to 4 or less which is happening in some races.Also,reducing the number of wagons per race may also help reduce the chance of crashes.That’s about as safe as it’s going to get though.It’s us and a few other people against the world. :( :( :(
Julia,I missed watching it live but later witnissed it on the news.It was horrible to watch those horses fall to their death.