The Canadian Professional Chuckwagon Association (CPCA) and Yorkton Dodge teamed up to bring the CPCA Chuckwagon Classic to Yorkton over the weekend.
Yorkton Exhibition Association GM Shawn Morin says the races attracted a good crowd and the weather was great for some good racing.
The CPCA wagons are the big ones, Morin points out. Twelve of the 33 at the Chuckwagon Classic will go on to race at the Calgary this summer, he notes.
Unlike the pony wagons, the big chuckwagons have two outriders each. The outriders have to throw the barrel into the back of the wagon when the horn goes to start a race and before they do the barreling pattern on coming out onto the track, Morin explains.
The wagons have to weigh 1,350 pounds. The horses are mainly picked up from thoroughbred race tracks around North America. They're all gelding and they're usually the bigger ones, 16-2 hands and up, Morin reports.
The wagons complete two turns around the barrels, go out onto the track where they complete one lap, he continues.
The two outriders can't be more than 125 feet behind the wagon when it hits the finish line, Morin says.
With 33 wagons, there are 11 heats each race day as each race is limited to three wagons because the track is narrower on the backside, Morin explains.
CPCA champion outrider at the Calgary Stampede, Dustin Gorst, from Meadow Lake is entering his 10th season as an outrider. Starting as a 16 year-old, the 25 year-old Gorst says he's been racing hard for a decade now.
Gorst is attracted to chuckwagon racing by the adrenalin rush he gets while competing. "The feeling you get when the horn goes and you're getting on and the speed of the horses. And the horses themselves. You soon fall in love with them," he explains.
Chuckwagon racing became a sport in its own rite apart from rodeo. Starting in Calgary, it developed into a professional sport on its own, Gorst says. The CPCA circuit travels to 11 different stops in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
In the past racing was pretty rough and pretty simple, says Gorst. Now it's as professional as could be with everything run as smoothly as can be, he adds.
The outrider basically adds more excitement to a chuckwagon race, Gorst suggests. It adds another element to the race. While outriders follow the same rules as the chuckwagons, but they're mainly there to add entertainment value by adding more to the race, Gorst elaborates.
Gorst runs a school for outriders at Meadow Lake. The school offers to train outriders in a safe environment so they can learn with a greatly reduced chance of injury, he explains.
Gorst, a former CPCA champion outrider, will be one of the outriders competing at the Calgary Stampede this summer.
