While the chuckwagons and chariots races drew visitors to Saddle Lake this past weekend to “taste the dust” as the event advertised, this year, the buzz was on a newly added event – the Indian Relay Race.
The All Pro Canadian Chuckwagon and Chariot Association saw 36 wagons and 33 carts send up plumes of dust as the horses pounded the track, from Friday to Sunday, but many were talking about what came after, the first time several got to watch the Indian Relay Races unfold.
Organizer Kim Brertton said she and Chief Eddie Makokis knew about the sport, and how big it was in the United States, and thought it would make a good addition to the annual chuckwagon finals in Saddle Lake.
“It’s an exciting, entertaining sport,” she said, adding she would like to see Saddle Lake add the relay as a sanctioned event, leading up to the September finals for the sport in Billings, Montana.
In the final heat, teams Pretty Young Man, TK Ferrier and Old Son would face off, vying for a $5,000 purse, to be split between winners.
The announcer builds the excitement, telling the audience they’re going to watch “poetry in motion . . . as man and horse work together.” The competitors enter the track, wearing regalia and war paint, with the crowd giving a whoop for local boy and TK Ferrier jockey Cory Jackson, who hails from Whitefish (Goodfish) Lake.
“It’s crazy; it’s scary because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Brertton of the lead-up to the race, noting that a person could fall off, or a horse could run off and leave their rider stranded. “There’s a lot of action in this sport, and that’s what makes it entertaining.”
As the race jumps to a start, each of the teams of four work together, with Jackson’s teammates from Saddle Lake, catcher Tyson Head, holder Clifton Shirt and back-catcher Elmer Delver, all playing a role. Jackson races around the track once on one horse, while his teammates ready for him to come around the bend. He jumps off, and then launches onto the next horse, with the first jockey to race all three horses home first the winner.
While the Pretty Young Man team led the race in the first two rounds, in the last exchange, the jockey was slow to get on his horse, while the Old Son jockey was unable to get on his horse at all. Jackson rode the advantage home to a cheer from the crowd as TK Ferrier became Saddle Lake’s 2017 Indian Relay Race champion.
Kyri Jackson was asked to ride the maiden race of the Indian Relay by her cousin, competitor with Team Lone Wolf Kal Jackson, who also is from Whitefish (Goodfish) Lake.
While she had never done the Indian Relay prior to this year’s event in Saddle Lake, she notes she does have experience racing chariots.
“I was born and raised around (horses), so it’s natural,” she said, noting that balance becomes more important in the relay, as opposed to the chariots, which are more about strength. However, all of the sports require horsemanship skills, with the humans and horse working together as a team.
After seeing the Indian Relay Races in person, Kyri Jackson had just a few short words to describe it, which she did with a smile.
“It’s pretty intense.”
Surrounding First Nations communities like Onion Lake and Frog Lake, and others like Enoch as well, were expressing an interest in how Saddle Lake’s events would go, to bring the Indian Relay Races to their reserves as well, Brertton noted, predicting:
“It’s going to get bigger.”
