Rodeo sports have their roots in ranching. And like farming or ranching, a good rodeo weekend is at the mercy of the weather.
Bonnyville Ag Society’s rodeo and chuckwagon races this weekend came out of the rainy week in good shape. The rodeo events went off on schedule, and only Friday’s chuckwagons had to be postponed until Monday.
It was looking iffy earlier in the week, said Ag Society president Corey Daws.
“The worst that could happen is you cancel the whole show. And there was a risk of that earlier on in the week when we had the big rain,” Daws said. The rodeo committee made the call Monday on whether to scrub the program or go ahead.
“They said yeah, let’s get it done,” according to Daws.
“We stripped off the entire infield. We had a Cat come in, stripped the entire infield back to the base and then we laid all new sand in there and we worked it and worked it. And then we were ready,” he said.
“Tuesday it was stripped, Wednesday the sand came in, and Thursday we raced.”
Daws said the committee, the volunteers, and the local tradespeople came through with a huge effort.
“It’s one of the bigger events for the town. We look at it that way too, and we say how can we not do this? We have to get this done,” he said. “We have to get all the work done. The show has to go on because we don’t want to disappoint the town and all the people that come to watch.”
He says he can’t thank everyone enough for the extra effort.
“Everybody came out, came through together,” he said. “We got together and then within half an hour of making the call to fix the infield, we had all the trades lined up.”
Daws said there wasn’t any doubt about the rodeo events, but there are special safety considerations for the chuckwagon teams—including the horses.
“Nothing stops rodeo,” he said. But the decision to postpone Friday’s chuckwagon races was made in close consultation with World Professional Chuckwagon Association officials and track experts.
And when the sun came out on Saturday, everyone was satisfied that postponing was the right call.
“We had comments from our staff, from our volunteers, from spectators saying ‘thank you for postponing it,’” Daws said. “That was probably the best call for everybody involved.”
