Cowboys ready to strut their stuff

Cowboys from across southern Alberta will put their horsemanship skills to the test at Bar U Ranch this weekend.

Foss Irwin has been entering the national historic site’s annual chore horse competition since 2013. He won it his first year and is ready to try his luck again on Sept. 11 with his American spotted draft crossbred horses Timber, 5, and Chief, 17.

The event begins at 1 p.m. and takes place in the Bar U Ranch grass arena.

“It’s as western as you can get and we love everybody in that neck of the woods,” the Wetaskiwin cowboy said last week. “It’s really competitive and it separates the men from the boys.”

The chore horse competition challenges ranchers and farmers from across the southern part of the province to attempt various farm and ranch tasks from transporting feed to traversing through obstacles.

Irwin retired from rodeo about 15 years ago, but is still heavily involved in the horse community, entering show horse challenges and participating in the Calgary Stampede parade.

Geoff Hoar watched the Chore Horse Competition two years ago and decided to compete this year.

“I thought it was quite interesting,” he said. “It’s a skills contest. You have to pilot them through eight or nine manoeuvres just to see how broke they are.”

The Innisfail horseman trains and shows horses for a living and said this type of competition is a great test of his horses’ abilities.

He’s spent the past few weeks training four-year-old roan Belgians Maude and Molly for the competition.

Although his horses are worked hard during the winter months to bring feed to his cattle each day, Hoar said they don’t do nearly as much work in the summer and he figured they could use a bit of practice before showing off their skills this weekend.

“You think you’re good, but it’s a true test when you take them somewhere else,” he said. “Every horse you have you want them to be the best they can.”

Mike McLean, Bar U Ranch special projects officer, said the chore horse competition is a great way to offer a taste of ranching life to visitors and is a real crowd pleaser.

“The competition itself is looking to the time when horses were the most important form of getting things done on the ranch or the farm,” he said. “It’s trying to emulate what would happen around the ranch in the days of horse power.”

McLean said some people continue to use horses in their day-to-day operations.

“I know there are some ranchers and farmers in the area who still feed their livestock in the winter using horses,” he said. “It’s showing how horses and drivers can work well together through a variety of tasks.”

Among the challenges are transporting hay bales, maneuvering through small spaces and loading and unloading salt blocks, said McLean.

“There’s an event that goes from having the horses stand still and allowing the driver to open the gate and the driver guide them through a timed obstacle course,” he said.

While the 10-year-old event has virtually stayed the same, McLean expects that might change.

“We’ve been talking about coming up with new ideas,” he said. “That’s a work in progress right now.”

The Chore Horse Competition closes the Bar U Ranches’ summer showcase events, yet the public can take in small events this month from harvest demonstrations to a star gazing event Sept. 16 offered by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

The Bar U Ranch National Historic Site is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Sept. 30.

To learn more about the Chore Horse Competition and other events go to www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/ab/baru/visit/visit2.aspx