Cotton candy and rodeo cowboys

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/07/2012 (4290 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MORRIS — The rodeo stars don’t tip their hats to the crowd until the evening, when the fairgrounds fill up with spectators ready for a wild show.

But on Thursday afternoon, the first day of the Manitoba Stampede — the province’s only professional-circuit rodeo, it proudly notes — amid the wafting scents of grilling beef and sticky midway treats, the air already smells like horses.

Part of it is the action on the track, the chuckwagon and chariot races that thunder past Morris’s brightly painted grandstand. But it’s also the arrival of the show ponies, horses and cattle that relax in the shade of the stampede’s show barn.

Some years ago — he doesn’t quite remember when — Rene Morin brought a long plank to the barn at the Morris Stampede grounds. He needed it to hold a curtain for the stall where he kept the tack for his prized show ponies.

All these years later, that plank is still there. So, for that matter, is Morin: now 72, a retired grain seller who started showing his Hackney ponies in 1967.

Does that make him the most veteran show guy at the stampede? “Oh, probably,” Morin chuckles. “I’ve missed a few years here and there.”

Morin’s Bonnie Dee Stables is one of only a handful in Manitoba that show Hackney ponies, a breed famous for its high-stepping trot. There’s a new exhibitor showing Hackney ponies at the stampede this year; Morin says his ponies are up for the challenge.

“These ponies can hold their own,” he says proudly, while the petite and gleaming horses watch him with bright eyes.

Things have changed since Morin got started. Rural life has changed. The kids, when they grow up, often have bigger eyes for ATVs than barns; they grow up, look to the city and leave small towns and prairie fields behind. There are not as many horse-show people as there used to be.

But the daily rhythms of the horse and livestock exhibitors at the stampede remain the same. In the morning, muck out the stalls and go for a big group breakfast. In the afternoon, take the horses out for a trot around the show ring. One will be named a winner of each event; but the camaraderie — that stretches beyond the competition.

“Can you watch a hockey game without picking sides?” Morin asks, and grins. “You love the competition. But after it’s all over, we’ll sit down and have a beer. If someone’s having trouble with their horse, we’ll all run over to help. Because the next day, it might be your horse.”

The Manitoba Stampede runs through Sunday.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca