The Wild Wild West

Opening with Rodeo Princesses and Anthem

Most of ya'll who have been following this blog for sometime now are quite aware of my southern city upbringing. My family resided in Montana for the last 13 years and have recently relocated to a beautiful and still very rural Wyoming community. My daughter, whom we fondly call Lil' Bit is absolutely horse crazy. :) Anything she can possibly attend or be involved with in regards to horses is definitly at the top of her list. When our new landlords let us know there would be a "Horse Pulling" at the local fair grounds, she made sure she had all the info so we would not have any excuse to miss the event. Having never heard of "horse pulling" I was game but had no earthly clue what I was headed to. This blog will be very picture heavy, as I was in such awe of these awesome animals, I could not stop taking pictures. I'm sure the locals could tell we were not from the area...with all the picture taking and absolute amazement we had at what these draft horses can do!

---

For those of you not familiar with this event, I will explain it as best I can. There are three classes. The light weight team can weigh up to 3200 pounds! Middle weight is up to 3500 pounds and heavy weight is over that. Each team pulls a sled with weights added at intervals. There are strict rules in the sport to eliminate animal cruelty and from what I saw tonight these lovely beings are well loved and cared for and you can see the joy they have while pulling! It is considered a successful pull when the team stays within the roped off area (they cannot go out of bounds and must pull relatively straight) and meets the distance requirement. As the competition gets tougher and heavier the distances are measured as to how far a team pulled the weight to determine the winner. Teams are eliminated along the way when they cannot pull the additional weights.

The strength and beauty of these animals was simply amazing. It made me wonder how much work and effort it takes to get them to this level? 

It took three men everything they had to get these beautiful animals to remain steady in order to be hitched to the sled... they were just raring to pull and were so excited. I really felt the horses love of pulling ... I think it must be in the DNA because I have NEVER seen anything like it! I however would not want my hands anywhere near all those hooks and moving parts! There were a couple of times I was sure someone was going to lose a finger when a horse took off sooner than planned!

This team won the light weight competition pulling 8500 pounds 2 ft 3 inches! The competition was very very close ! The middle weight team was again won by this same owner with a different set of horses and they pulled 9500 pounds! We left before the end of the heavy weight, as the sun had sunk below the horizon and we were freezing after 3 hours of competition! 

I was quite impressed to see the owners pull their team when they knew the next weight would be too much for their horses. Not once was it evident a team was pushed beyond their limits or put into jeopardy. 

If you ever have the opportunity to witness a draft pulling competition, I highly recommend it! Our first week here in Wyoming had given me a new appreciation for the west, and tonight I was reminded of how much I love the fierce and tough people of these NW states, such as Wyoming and Montana. While there are times I really want to head home to the gentle south of my childhood, there is something which holds me out here, perhaps the exhilaration of knowing there is just a little bit of untamed and wild wild west left and a desire to experience all it has to offer... within reason of course ;)