A High River chuckwagon driver wasn’t quite 100 per cent focused when he made his debut holding the reins at the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth last week.

Brian Mayan also thought of family.
“I thought of my dad when I was going around the racetrack,” Brian Mayan said prior to Sunday’s races. “Just for a second it came into my mind that he would have been here to see it. I knew that was going to happen because I had been thinking of him all week.
“He would have been proud …

One cannot fault a pair of foothills showjumpers who are pleased with their results at the Spruce Meadows North American tournament.
Maren Reinbold of Priddis and Stacey Parker of DeWinton both competed throughout the North American tournament that ran from July 7 to 11. On Friday Reinbold finished 30th and Parker finished 21st in the ATCO Junior Barrage 1.10 metre.
“It’s just getting experience for me and this horse because she’s not really used to going in the rings quite yet, she’s a little bit green,” said Reinbold of her horse Ailsa …

Many local communities are taking part in the western festivities at the Calgary Stampede including one local woman who is taking her unique horses to The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.
Blackie resident Patricia Bricker has been a part of the Western Canadian Miniature Horse Club for the past 10 years and raises her own miniature horses, which are part of the club’s show at the Calgary Stampede.
“We’ve bought our first minis in 2000 and friends of ours talked us into joining the club,” said Bricker. “We haven’t looked back since.”
Bricker …

The Calgary Stampede Rangeland Derby is more than a half-mile of hell.

As far as foothills area chuckwagon drivers Jason Glass and Mark Sutherland are concerned, it’s four miles of hell — there’s eight days of racing to determine who will have a chance to race for $100,000.
The top eight drivers after eight days of racing at the Rangeland Derby qualify for Saturday’s semifinal to determine who will be in the final on Sunday, July 18.
Glass had a blistering start on Day 1 on Friday when he won the $6,000 …

There’s a price that has to be paid to play lacrosse in the 2010 Alberta Summer Games.
For one Okotoks Bantam A Mustang that price was a few bruises; for another it was the years he has put into the game.

Those sacrifices paid off when Mustangs Taylor McNeill and Andrew Bablitz were named to the Zone 2 team which will play in the Alberta Summer Games July 19-25 in the Peace Region.
McNeill earned his bruises trying to cause havoc on opposing goaltenders.
“I play the crease, which is when you …

Holy Trinity Academy’s athlete of the year has already gone on to further his education despite the fact he’s only been out of school for a week.
Reid Watkins got a lesson in international wrestling when he took home the silver medal at the Canada Cup Pre-Junior championships on July 5 in Guelph, Ont.
Watkins was pinned by Jason Breton-Hurst of Ontario in the 69kg FILA Cadet final.
“I wasn’t happy with my performance in the final,” said Watkins, who is going into Grade 11 at Holy Trinity Academy in the fall. “I …

It’s going to be a homecoming for a heeler this weekend in Longview.
Peter Bews will be trying to snare the heels of a calf at the Longview Stampede and it’s one of the few rodeos the DeWinton cowboy competes in.

“I like the Longview rodeo because it is my hometown rodeo,” said Bews, a former student at Longview School. “The payout is pretty good there and the whole community comes out to watch. It’s kind of a homecoming for me…. There wasn’t a rodeo in Longview when I was …

An Okotoks cyclist has slowed down a bit since hitting 50 years old, but he is still putting in the kilometres this summer.
Okotokians Pat Donnelly, 50, and Michael Hullah, 67, cycled down to High River for a cup of coffee July 7 and then pedaled their way back. An impressive 45km ride, but both have done longer.

“I think I did 300 kilometres one time when we were on holidays,” Donnelly said. “My wife (Marlene) would stop the car and I would get out and pedal to the next …

Organizers of this year’s Foothills Charity triathlon have something new for racers this year.
They have a new route along 32nd Street into the MD for the bike stage with a great view and a long hill.
“Some racers really like that because they like to show their stuff on the hills, others need it to rest,” race organizer Maureen Misura.
The fifth annual spring-length triathlon sets out from the Crystal Shores Beach house with a half-kilometre swim stage, a 20 km bike leg followed by a five kilometere run Saturday morning.
The swimming …

An Okotoks chuckwagon driver’s goal is to be standing tall at the end of the Calgary Stampede Rangeland Derby and hoisting the $100,000 first-place cheque.

It will help erase the memory of him falling butt-over-teakettle in the Rangeland Derby final last year as he tried to hold his horses before the starting gun went off.
Sutherland was the first to cross the finish line in the Derby final last year, but was assessed a one-second penalty for a false start. Chad Harden, who finished behind Sutherland, ended up winning the …