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Mike Howell (00:08):
The Dirt with me, Mike Howell, an economics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by Ekonomics.com farming’s go-to informational resource, I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, news, and issues helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
(00:38):
Well, listeners, we promise you something exciting in this week’s episode and here it is. I’m pleased to let you know that we have Mark Sutherland with us today. Mark is a second generation chuckwagon racer and he’s been doing this for about 30 years. Mark, welcome to The Dirt.
Mark Sutherland (00:52):
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Mike Howell (00:53):
Mark, I’ve seen chuckwagon races on TV and even in person a time or two and it just amazes me how fast y’all are able to drive those waggons around the arena. From my vantage point, it looks like you’re just sitting there on the edge of out of control. For our listeners that haven’t seen chuckwagon racing and don’t know anything about it, if you would, tell us what chuckwagon racing is and what’s the purpose of it?
Mark Sutherland (01:14):
You bet. It is basically a Western Canadian event. It started back about 100 years ago. I think it probably started before that, but the gentleman that made it famous was Guy Weadick. He landed in this area, decided that the old stage coaches and the old chuckwagons, the food waggons, the camp waggons from moving the cattle would be a pretty interesting site if you raced the cattle cows against each other. Folklore says that that was happening out on the range.
(01:42):
As the guys would move their cows, everybody would get a little bored and they’d start chasing each other and racing these waggons. I can’t imagine with the technology back in the late 1800s what that looked like, but I think he made it famous I guess at the Calgary Stampede started in 1912 and then waggons were about 10 years after. This has been 100 years. What we do now is we use… They’re all very standard built. They’re still made out of the traditional design, which is four wooden waggon wheels.
(02:10):
We did change to steel axles for safety and we have a waggon that looks like an old food waggon that you would move with a grain box on it. We sit on top and we have four Thoroughbred race horses attached to the front, two and two. Now, it’s a faster event than it used to be due to training, feeding, and quality of animal that we purchased and trained to do this event. They’re all Thoroughbred race horses off of the racetracks. The chuckwagon drivers travel all across North America.
(02:36):
It’s not something that you raise your own horses. I wintered 44 head myself. My son also races. He wintered 27 head, meaning we keep them for the year and that’s what starts your spring training camp. I started spring training with 44 head. And then from those 44, similar to any other sports team, you pair down who’s best, who’s not, what position they go in. You find the best one in that position and he’s the one you’re going to race on barrel one at the Calgary Stampede. Now, we do have 10 other events all across Western Canada throughout the summer.
(03:08):
Years ago, we used to race down in the States, but logistics, it just becomes a bit of a nightmare. I can’t imagine it being any better now than it was 10 years ago. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of big races in the States, but we do race in Canada. The gist of the sport is it shows skill, horsemanship, steering, driving, and then training and caretaking of the horses. The object is just a speed race. You’re racing against your competitor, but there’s 27 guys and only generally three at the Calgary Stampede are on the track at once.
(03:37):
Some of the other races have four at once. Although you are trying to race against the individuals that are in your heat, you are racing against the clock and you want to be the fastest out of the guise that go that night. What you do is you go up and you make a figure eight. You could do it as fast as you can. There’s some skill involved in that. I guess we do it about 15 miles an hour is where they turn the top part of the figure eight.
(04:00):
And by the time we come down around the bottom of the figure eight, we’re doing that 32 miles an hour, and then we’ll peak at about 42 miles an hour in the second turn, will be our maximum speed. The fastest and best waggons, they’ll reach that max speed early and they’ll maintain as close as they can for as long as they can. In a horse race, people are familiar with the Kentucky Derby and races like that. You’ll see a long shot come from behind. Same with chuckwagons. You will see somebody…
(04:30):
They call it a finishing kick, but they’re never going as fast as they were in the second turn, so it isn’t really a finishing kick. That is where you’re training the horses’ just plain ability and obviously good feed and then just good horse selection. That’s where you get a finishing kick, but the horses don’t actually speed up on the home stretch. They’re actually probably five to eight miles an hour slower on the home stretch, depending on track conditions and length of the track.
(04:55):
First one across the track without penalties, bumping a barrel or getting out of your lane or messing with anybody, that’s strictly enforced and punishable. Well, you could be suspended. Safety of the horses is utmost right now and it has been, thankfully for my career, 30 plus years, but I suspect back in the 1800s they looked at things differently. But thank goodness we’ve got some technology and just some awareness. Fastest guy that has no penalties gets to waive the most of the crowd and collect all the cash.
Mike Howell (05:25):
Mark, you touched on a lot of subjects and actually touched on a lot of the questions I have listed here today that I wanted to talk about. You mentioned that those horses will reach a top speed of about 42 miles an hour. I had no idea they were going quite that fast, but I’ve watched the chuckwagon races mostly on television. Is that something that’s becoming a part of most rodeos now, or is that just at selected events that they had the chuckwagon races?
Mark Sutherland (05:47):
We go at selected events and the reason being is I’m hauling 27 horses to 35, somewhere in that range, to each event. It’s not like a team roper or a bull rider that just takes his bull rope. The team roper takes one or two horses, maybe a rookie or two competition horses if he switches him out. We’re travelling with 27 head, so we don’t bounce from day to day like a typical rodeo event. When we go to an event, we’re there for hopefully three to five days. 10 days at the Calgary Stampede.
(06:18):
Six days at the Ponoka Stampede, which we just finished. That would be the biggest race in Canada would be the Ponoka Stampede outside of Calgary, of course. Again, there’s a certain number of us that can do this. There are pony chuckwagons all across North America as well, and those horses are just that, they’re a pony horse. They’re getting to the point where they breed stunted Thoroughbreds as well, stunted growth Thoroughbreds. I’m not familiar to be honest with the sport that they do that well.
(06:47):
People would’ve seen that possibly. But we are just at major rodeos in Western Canada, and some of the events aren’t even rodeos. It’s a standalone event. We do chuckwagon races. They might hold a conference or a concert or beer gardens or whatever they do, a couple concerts. We go to 11 places. We start racing right around that final week in May, depending on the schedule. Every week we travel to a new location and set up camp and race our hearts out.
Mike Howell (07:14):
Mark, let’s talk a little bit about the horses. You already mentioned the safety factors that go into it and you can get some penalties if some unsafe things are going on. But first, I know there’s a lot of people out there that dislike the sport of rodeo and the events associated with it. They say that the animals are being mistreated and abused. In my experience, I’ve been around a few places and I can say that I’ve seen barns that are better equipped than my house.
(07:40):
I’ve seen some of the air-conditioned trailers that these animals ride around in. I know they get regular vet visits. Of course, they’ve got the best nutrition that you can possibly find and so much more. What would you say to people that have this negative view about the sport of rodeo in general and how can we get them convinced that these animals are really being taken care of properly?
Mark Sutherland (08:00):
Well, I think education is the key. I think that Western events people, although Western events would be cattle pinning to some people and rodeo and chuckwagons, those are Western events. To me, they’re horse events, equine events. Even jumping, which they’re not Western people, they ride English and they do a lot of different things, but those are all horse events. To me, anyone that’s working like myself with horses or a working cowboy, they love animals. I mean, that’s why I am doing it.
(08:28):
If I wanted to race cars, I would. I don’t want to race NASCAR. I don’t want to drag race. I don’t want to do that stuff. I reached the pinnacle of chuckwagon racing because I’ve worked hard and I love animals and that’s what I want to do. These folks that are concerned about the health and safety and the care of animal are sometimes our allies and that’s where I think we’re kind of going a little bit off base. Now, if they’re not there for improvement of the sport and the care of the animals, then they’re not our allies.
(08:58):
They’re not animal lovers, they’re political protesters or whatever the reasons are. I don’t know. But I’ve met a number of people that are self-proclaimed, for lack of a better term, animal lovers, but they hate the sport. They hate rodeo. They hate chuckwagons. They hate this stuff. I’ve educated them and I’ve explained to them and showed many of them through social media, which I’m grateful for just because we can get our message out there, and other avenues that we’re allies in this.
(09:23):
We’re allies in taking care of horses. I’m not going to pretend that animals don’t get injured during competition events, because you’ll go to a world-class jumping, you can watch the Olympics when they’re jumping, which they were in some of the Olympics here, and you can watch world-class events and animals have a potential to get injured during competition. But what we need to do is deal with decision-making that causes those injuries and eliminate those decisions.
(09:50):
What we need to do is ensure that the Kentucky Derby has the safest racing surface that they deem safe. Horse events all across North America are doing this. The Calgary Stampede is doing this. We need to ensure that the track surface is safe. The horses are trained and fit. The nutritionist is there. You can imagine if you’re training, owning, feeding 44 head of horses, that’s not a $2,000 a year bill. That’s a $200,000 a year bill in excess of that. This isn’t a pastime. We don’t do this to abuse horses and we don’t do this to hurt them.
(10:24):
And if for no other reason, this is why I try to explain to some of these folks, if you’re a cold-hearted callous individual, which I’m not and I don’t believe a lot of people are that are in equine sports, they’re doing it because they love the animal. But just to say hypothetically, if you’re a cold-hearted mean individual and all you care about is money and winning, why would you affect one of your assets so greatly? That’s like taking the greatest hockey player or baseball player out in the world and making that guy pitch two games in a row and blowing a shoulder.
(10:52):
Why would you do that? If there’s no other reason like love for an animal, which we have, I mean that’s why I do it, if there’s no other reason, it doesn’t make sense. It’s a bit of a straw man argument that some of these folks have and it can be easily with education, with just giving that person access and showing them what we’re doing and explaining the checks and balances that we have in our sport. Now, I always open up for discussion, for explanation, and for education when it comes to horse safety, when it comes for improvement, continuous improvement of the sport, anything.
(11:25):
I’ve been on the forefront of nine published University of Calgary equine studies to do with horse health. This is something that I’ve devoted my life to, so I don’t have an issue with that. The people that I don’t want to engage with discussing it is people who aren’t trying to improve the sport, people who are trying to eliminate the sport.
(11:43):
If you don’t believe that animals should be pets like dogs or horses should have a life, my theory is horses having a life racing on the racetrack and then transitioning to chuckwagon races or a quarter horse that gets to chase cows and rope professionally. To me, that’s a better life than having no life at all. And if some of these folks are thinking that we just shouldn’t have these animals, then I can’t help them. They’re beyond help. I can’t educate them.
Mike Howell (12:08):
I understand. Mark, you talked about entering spring training and the number of horses you had. If you will, talk a little bit about the training routine that these animals go through and their exercise programme. How do you get them ready for the race?
Mark Sutherland (12:21):
They’re a little bit different than a Thoroughbred, racetrack Thoroughbred. As I mentioned, they all come off of racetracks across North America, but our horses will be a little bit heavier. They’ll be a little bit older. The Kentucky Derby, for those that don’t know, is a three-year-old race. I’m racing an 18-year-old horse at the Calvary Stampede. I know everyone will say, “Whoa, wait a minute, what’s this hillbilly doing?” Well, I don’t have a lot of 18 year olds. I have a super athlete that is Michael Jordan, LeBron James, whatever.
(12:48):
I don’t know any sports references that the folks know, but he’s the old guy that can do it. Now, there’s lots of 12 year olds in my sport that aren’t as good as him and they’ve finished their career, but our horses are big, thick, strong because they’re 8, 10, 12, 14 year old horses. The horses at the racetrack are two to typically five years old. They race once every three weeks and they’re at a peak performance. Ours all have to race a couple times in four days here at the Calgary Stampede.
(13:17):
With each individual horse, you’ll have to have two runs. I really don’t want that horse to be peak performance that first run. It’s more of an exercise run. When we train in the spring, I know that sounds silly because you go to win, but you go to win, it’s a aggregate and then you go to win the dash. You kind of have to plan your training that way. You work on the cardio. We just do slow miles galloping. We have a setup where we do that. Some guys use the equalisers with the wheel. Some guys just drive them.
(13:47):
There’s different ways to do it, but what you need is you need cardiovascular and muscle for these horses. My theory is before you’re really running them, you’re giving them 30 to 40 days of pretty good training and then you let them run a short distance. They’re happy with that. They’re athletes. They want to run. But they think they can run a mile, they can only run a quarter mile. These Thoroughbreds are just like children and you have to teach them and you got to show them.
(14:11):
If you let them run, I suspect they’d run as far as they could until they’re exhausted. That’s what we do. We give them that slow miles, which would be the cardio and the muscle training, and then we hook them on the waggon once every four to six days, again, depending on your spraying and depending on weather. And then that helps them work the specific muscle groups, which would be the hind end, the shoulder, whatever it is. It’s a different deal galloping without pulling and not running.
(14:39):
We do the two different types of training, which is basically a cardio and then the… I mean, don’t misunderstand. When they go on that waggon, they’re breathing heavy when they’re done. It’s a good work, but we don’t do that every day because you can’t. I mean, that’s just not how you train. You don’t scrimmage every day when you’re a hockey player. You don’t play a game every day when you’re a hockey player. You skate laps and sometimes it’s slow laps, sometimes it’s fast first.
(15:04):
They’re mammals. The horses are a lot like humans. We actually adapt some of the training that people do. You’re looking at aerobic and anaerobic training. You’re looking at fast bursts. Generally what we find is just like in sport, human sport, some athletes have it and some don’t. You can get by with a horse with a lot of heart and a lot of try. But if you have a horse with a lot of heart and he has all that physical ability as well, then that’s where you build your superstars.
(15:31):
We can pretend that we’re the super trainer and we’re the smart guy and we’re doing all this stuff, and sometimes you just get lucky and get two of them. You train them how you want to, but they’re getting ready themselves and they know what they’re doing. I’ve been blessed with a lot of those superstars in my career, and thank goodness I’ve got a couple right now.
Mike Howell (15:47):
Mark, you compared the horses to humans and I understand that. I grew up on a farm and we had cattle and horses and always appreciated those animals. But one thing I picked up on at an early age is all these animals have their own personality. Now, you’re trying to drive a team with four different horses that have a different personality. How do you go about blending those different personalities together and make them into a team that each does their own function?
Mark Sutherland (16:11):
It’s like a offensive line in football. I keep making sports references, but that’s the only way I can explain it to people. You can have two superstars on that offensive line, but you got a bad offensive line. The reason is is because they don’t work together. And if you’re lucky and you get the personalities and the movements and the skillability and the way they like to turn and the way they like to run, you can team those horses up. If you happen to get two superstars or three superstars or four, which is difficult…
(16:42):
I mean, look, I got some nice horses, but I don’t have four superstars that I race on one outfit. I just don’t, because a superstar is a superstar. The rest are just really, really good horses. If you’re lucky and you got a couple of them and they work together, that’s just how you succeed. It’s trial and error. It’s recognising what that horse’s ability is, the way he starts, the way he turns, the way he charges around that top barrel, where he places on the track, where he exerts his effort.
(17:09):
Because again, I’m riding four of them, so I can rate them a little bit, but it’s virtually impossible to rate four horses separately. If somebody’s galloping a horse or running a horse and you’re sitting on his back, you can rate that one horse and you can without a doubt control that horse, tell them when to go fast and when to go slow. I can tell at best too because of the way that the waggon is set up, I can say, “Look, guys, here’s your signal. Now, you know well enough, slow down a little bit.
(17:37):
Let’s just take a breather. We got another 40 seconds of racing and here’s what you need to do.” I can only do that through a flick of the wrist or a pull of the finger on the reins, and that’s why this personality and putting this team together is so important. Because if they don’t work together and you can’t match the abilities, the skills, and the personalities, then they’re just not going to be a successful team.
Mike Howell (18:00):
Mark, I really appreciate that offensive line analogy you made there. I’m an old offensive lineman, and I’ve got a son that just graduated from high school. He was a pretty good offensive lineman. But that’s right. If you don’t have the right people around you, it doesn’t matter how good you are, you’re not going to get the job done. Mark, you mentioned nutrition on these horses a time or two. Let’s talk a little bit about nutrition and what kind of diet these animals are getting. How do you choose a good feed? How do you get quality hay and what goes into that?
Mark Sutherland (18:29):
Well, for me, I know there’s a lot of folks out there that use bagged, packaged premixed products. That has never really worked for me, and a lot of it is just simple numbers. I started training with 44. I whittled that down. Let’s just say I had 35, 40 horses, 36, something like that. I start training. Now, those horses get fed throughout the day, right? I can’t take 900 bags of a premixed feed and then feed each horse. I start with a good cleaned oat. For me, it’s necessity that it’s cleaned.
(19:03):
It’s a heavy oat. The breed of oat is important, but not earth-shattering. We can get protein tests on all of it. Lots of times if I’m able to find it, I’ll feed a seed oat. I like a big, thick, plump oat. I like it to be cleaned, and I start with that. In the off season, which these horses have essentially from September 1st all the way to March 1st, my horses are on a complete 100% self-feed oat. There will be 300 or 400 bushels of oats in tubs all across my pastures, and then there’ll be six or eight tubs of self-feed second cut alfalfa.
(19:41):
And that’s how they winter. That’s how they off season. Grass doesn’t do it for a Thoroughbred race horse that is trying to be a chuckwagon horse. They build their muscle by their protein that they ingest. You can have the best grass in the world, but for a Thoroughbred athlete, you need that real protein that’s in the grain. Grass is a 100% necessity for a Thoroughbred horse, but it’s a supplement. I always approach a nice green grass field pasture as a mental thing for a Thoroughbred horse.
(20:14):
They love to go out and pick at the roots and eat the grass and find the sweet spots. But when their stomach needs the food, the meat, the beef, they don’t eat beef, they eat oats. When we start training, then we put them in the barn and we ration them, because some horses are easier keepers. Some horses are wide receivers and some horses are offensive linemen. You need them both, just like you do in a football team. I’ve got an older out riding horse and he looks like a pregnant mare about eight, nine months of the year.
(20:44):
For the folks that don’t know, these are all gelded Thoroughbreds, so I don’t have any pregnant mares. I’ve got a big gelding that I raced on the chuck waggon, and he looks like a pregnant mare about 11 months a year. Right now is his peak season and he starts slimming down, but slim for him is not a Speedo look. It’s a full on bathing suit because he’s just such a girthy big horse. When I start training with those horses, again, you’re talking about a 12 or 14 year old horse. You need to get the weight off them so that their joints, so that their feet, their heart and lungs can take it.
(21:18):
I’ll ration the feed with some of them. And then some of these other ones with high higher metabolism, when they get their lunch oats and breakfast and supper, they’ll get more. I don’t feed a supplement for breakfast or lunch, but I feed supplements with the oats mixed for supper. In this time of season, and actually for the last month at least, what I’ve been doing is they’ll get three gallons of oats in their supper mash. They get an electrolyte, which is obviously a necessity.
(21:44):
That’s a supplement that we just add on. We’ll get a protein pellet. When I look at what’s in the protein, where they’re getting the protein from, for a race horse, like a Thoroughbred chuckwagon horse, I’m not a big fan of pea protein. I know that it’s got its place, but it doesn’t have its place in my barn for a protein supplement. I’m very careful what minerals and supplements go in my pellets. I have a product I like, and that’s the one I use. There’s other drivers that use other stuff.
(22:09):
I also like a little bit of oil. I’ll use canola oil. I just use food grade. I buy it from the grocery store. That helps with their shine. That helps with their coat. It helps with their stomach. I don’t put a lot in, but I put a little bit in. Then I’ll add a little bit of flaxseed, and I use a whole flax seed. I’ve tried both for years. The whole flax is much, much better. Again, through my years of learning, it’s my understanding that the way that the horse’s stomach works, I don’t use a rolled oat because they’re not like a cow.
(22:38):
When you go out in your pasture or your corrals, you’ll be looking at the horse manure and it looks like there’s whole oat sitting in the horse manure and you’re thinking, oh man, I’m wasting it. But they’re getting that protein. There’s no value in the hull of an oat for a Thoroughbred horse. The fibre that he needs comes from the hay. And in some cases, they’ll chew on the straw. I think that’s more of a nervous thing. The fibre that they need comes from the hay. The protein comes from the meat of the oat.
(23:04):
I don’t use a rolled oat. I don’t feel that the rolled oat is the way to go with the horses. I don’t feel for some reason the cracked flax seed. You don’t get the same result. I use a whole seed. They grind it up a little bit, but the interesting part I found about their stomach is when it soaks in there for the short period of time, they get what they need out of it. It’s amazing the way that these animals were created. Once you figure that out, it’s pretty easy. A lot of these horses I’ve had for a number of years, so I know their habits.
(23:31):
I know what they need to eat. I know what extra supplements they get. I also do a powdered mineral. Some people use a liquid mineral. I stay away from sugary things like molasses. I used to use that in a mineral, but I don’t anymore. I’ll do an additive of a mineral and a little bit of salt. And then depending on individual horses, they’ll get an individual supplement. It could be anything. I give amino acids to some horses. There’s a nice feed product that I use on certain horses and it’s got a bunch of amino acids and muscle builders in it.
(24:00):
It’s a wonderful product, and I only use it on certain horses. It can be overused, so you don’t overuse it. Again, I got 35 of these athletes on my team. I can’t imagine a football team… Well, again, I hate to go back to the offensive linemen, but the NFL nutritionists are not feeding the offensive linemen and pushing food down their throat and making them eat to gain the weight the same way that they’re training and feeding a wide receiver. They’re just not. Tight ends are different than receivers, and tight ends are different than running backs.
(24:30):
These horses are the same. Because first of all, their body type. Second of all, the job I want them to do. And third, their metabolism. Horses have a palate as well, their individual palate. You might want to stick a bunch of electrolytes in a horse, but he don’t like the taste and he won’t eat it. He doesn’t like the salty taste. How do you do it? Well, you got to figure it out. You got to be smarter than a horse, which isn’t easy all that often, but you got to either give him a different electrolyte, or you got to give it to him in a paste.
(24:58):
You have to help the horse when he won’t help himself. That’s a high level summary. My son likes a little bit of a different mix, and he’s using a soaked beet pulp. He likes the beet pulp. I don’t. Corn is not a diet for these horses anymore. There used to be the odd guy that put a little corn and barley, but you can herd a Thoroughbred’s feed with corn and barley. Thankfully, lessons learned from our ancestors in the last 100 years of training these horses, I don’t have to go through that.
(25:24):
The odd time, and I’ve experienced it once in my career and my son has one horse, the odd time you’ll have a horse that is somehow allergic to oats, and then you have to completely throw everything I said out the window, get him all them supplements, all those minerals, the amino acids, the electrolytes. You got to get him some protein so he can build some muscle mass. And then you just have to use a different product for him.
Mike Howell (25:48):
Mark, that’s where our worlds come together. You talked a lot about the high levels of protein you need to build these muscles and the amino acids. That’s where my job is, is making sure we get the nitrogen fertiliser onto these crops to make sure that we have the high protein that these horses are going to need.
(26:03):
For our listeners that were wondering how we were going to tie this back together, that’s how it all ties back together between the horse racing and the agronomy side of it. Mark, I understand this is going to be your last season driving the chuckwagons. Are you still going to be around helping your son, or are you going to hang it up altogether?
Mark Sutherland (26:19):
Gosh, I don’t know. This has been part of my life for my entire life. My father raced chuckwagons before I was born. I’m 52 years old. My first July 1st I spent at the Ponoka Stampede and I was a mere six or eight months old. Up until they shut everything down a couple years ago, I’d never missed a Ponoka Stampede. In my mind, that would be akin to people never being anywhere except one particular spot, July 4th. July 1st for me, I’d never been anywhere except the Ponoka Stampede.
(26:54):
I’ve got a lot of history doing that, so it’s going to be hard to step away. The worst part is the horses. I’m going to retire a couple. I’m going to try to sell a couple to my son and try to get them to other people that I trust and respect. But letting go of my team is the biggest issue, and I can’t retire them all. Because regardless of how much I would like to and how good the fertilizer’s working on my hay, it’s too expensive for me to have lawn ornaments, so I just can’t do it. I’ve got five or six that are retired at the ranch, and I’ve done that over the last 20 or 30 years.
(27:25):
They’ll die there, and that’s just the way it is. But I don’t know how much I’m going to spend around. I’m going to try to help my son as best I can. I suspect it’s going to be a little hard to be sitting in the stands. I admire guys like Terry Bradshaw that can sit in the booth and talk about quarterbacks and football. I don’t know if I’m that guy. I get mad when I watch a chuckwagon race and I’m not in it. My plan is to do a little bit of fishing and get to a few more live NFL games in the summertime in the fall and help where I can.
(27:55):
My life’s been about horses. We’re going to have horses. My son’s going to have horses. I’m going to help him as best I can. I don’t know. You kind of got me tongue-tied because it’s a transition that I think I’m ready for, but I know I’m not.
Mike Howell (28:08):
I understand. It’s always tough walking away from something you love like that. Mark, final question, I know you’ve got a lot to do getting ready for the next race, but if you would, think back over your 30 years racing or 30 plus years racing, what’s the most memorable event you’ve participated in? What one event stands out?
Mark Sutherland (28:26):
Announcing retirement allows for reflection. Somebody interviewed me this spring and said, well, are you going to have some memories when you go to your last time at the Grande Prairie Stampede, which was my hometown in Alberta, or the Ponoka Stampede, which I won in 2019. I lost by three one-hundredths of a second to my father in about 2015. I think I lost it again earlier than that. I’ve got a lot of memories. I told him, I don’t think I’m going to have a lot of reflection running around the racetrack going down the back stretch. And if I do, I’ll be going too slow.
(28:58):
But that wasn’t necessarily true, because it isn’t the races you remember, it’s the people. But one of the advantages of growing old, I was able to have mentors in the sport. I was able to grow up with them. Some of them are still around. Most of them aren’t competing anymore. I’ve spent my life with those people, with my family. They’ve travelled with me. My son’s now in the sport. My daughter’s out helping with some of the spares that we have. Like I said, I’m only bringing certain number of horses to the Calgary Stampede, so she’s out helping me train those ones at the ranch.
(29:26):
It’s the individual races. Yes, I do remember a few of those, but it all blends together. What I remember the most, crossing the finish line, being first. Excuse me. It’s not about the individual races, it’s the team. It’s the horses.
Mike Howell (29:46):
Mark, we sure appreciate you taking time to share all your experiences with us today and give us a little behind the scenes view into what you do and how you handle these animals. Listeners, we hope you’ve enjoyed this segment. Now we’re going to move into our second segment of the day where we talk about somebody famous in agriculture. Now, today we’re focusing on the Calgary Stampede, and I thought it would be good if we took a look back at the history of the Calgary Stampede and how it was designed and organised.
(30:16):
The Calgary Stampede was organised first by a guy by the name of Guy Weadick. He was an American cowboy, a performer, and a promoter that was known as the P.T. Barnum of the North. He founded the Calgary Stampede along with his wife, the famed cowgirl, Florence LaDue. Weadick gained financing from The Big Four. Those four men were George Lane, who was owner of the Bar U Ranch, two other wealthy ranchers, Patrick Burns and A.E. Cross, and J. McLean, who was a provincial secretary.
(30:47):
Now, these four men were integral in the development of Alberta, all serving in the Alberta and Canadian politics. The Big Four building at the Stampede grounds in Calgary was named for the four businessmen and once held the largest curling rink in the world. Weadick staged the first Calgary Stampede from September the 2nd through the 7th of 1912, and he did this to coincide with when the ranchers and farmers had finished harvesting and would be free to attend. The event continues today, except it’s been moved to July.
(31:19):
This year is the 111th anniversary of the Stampede. Weadick ran the stampede for the first 20 years, and then went on to run and promote other Wild West shows. He was a Stampede Grand Marshal in 1952, and he passed away in 1953. He is buried in Southern Alberta Prairies beside his wife. Now, an interesting fact about Mr. Weadick was that he was inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy in Western Heritage Museum in 1976, and his wife was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 2001.
(31:57):
We want to thank Mr. Weadick for all of his contributions to rodeo and to agriculture and for founding the original Calgary Stampede. Well, listeners, we really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode today where we were bringing you information about the Calgary Stampede and the rodeo and also some agronomy facts and information as well. If you need more information on anything we’ve covered today, you can visit our website. That’s nutrien-ekonomics, with a K, .com.
(32:23):
I want to invite you back next week as we conclude our segments on the Calgary Stampede. We’ll be discussing more about Canadian agriculture and some more famous people in Canadian agronomy. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
