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Did You Know?


In 2011, animal rights advocate Temple Grandin visited the Calgary Stampede. Grandin acknowledged that chuckwagon and horse racing exist in a society susceptible to a lack of knowledge about animals. She said, “We have a population today that’s totally removed from animals, and also totally removed from practical things. I talked to


a guy at a livestock show who didn’t like the way we peeled cattle to harvest leather, and let them grow another crop of leather. There were also some children in California that thought eggs grow in the ground like potatoes.”


The race was Sutherland’s moment with destiny. It was his oppor-


 Cosgrave who won 10 titles in the 1930s and 40s. His competitors were equally hungry to win. Sutherland says, “I knew I had to have Barrel 1 to win it.” As the cowboys went on the Stampede stage for the pre-race barrel


draw, Sutherland anxiously put his hand into the draw box. He recalls,  He adds, “If you’re in the sport long enough, you just realize you


don’t always have good luck. It doesn’t matter. You don’t always need good luck. You need it every once in a while to win the big ones, and if you just keep working, it rolls up, and the luck comes there.” Yet Sutherland knew the other drivers were not going to give him an easy run. He says, “The other drivers said, ‘We’ll let him stub his toe. We’re going to put pressure on him.’ “That’s what you have to do. You have to put pressure on people


 your toe once, and I mean once, those guys are going to eat you up for lunch. They’re going to get the gap, and you’re done.”  not make a mistake. When the klaxon blew all four drivers made im- peccable turns around the barrels. Simultaneously careening around their bottom barrels, they tore on to the track - four chuckwagons abreast. It was a marvelous moment.


Sutherland says, “I just couldn’t believe it. My horses worked per-


fect, which they had to do. When I looked across, there were four wag- ons across the track. I could look at every driver, and nobody was six inches either way - we were just across. We all turned four abreast. We were all too equal.”   wagons they turn two and two, sometimes three and one, never four  that I was in a race. It was a race of my life to win it, because those guys were coming.” By having Barrel 1, Sutherland gained access to the coveted rail position, and his horses held their speed. As Sutherland crossed the  and roared with joy. “It was just such a feeling... I was so emotional that night, but what


it was... of all the races I’ve been in, that thing meant so much to me, because of how the race played out.” 


bones, Kelly Sutherland has been the competitor to beat. With traits of the wild west, Sutherland is the irrepressible west. His hands, made strong by driving and training horses, speak silently of his fortitude and steely toughness. He possesses a passion to win not diminished in 50 years. Within chuckwagon racing, let alone any other sport, our grandstands may not see the likes of him again. FM


IAVM 47


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