LONG WEEKEND RODEOS SET TO KICK OFF AT STRATHMORE, ABBOTSFORD AND GRIMSHAW
July 30 , 2009

The folks on the Strathmore Rodeo Committee are just hours away from swinging open the gates for five performances at the Strathmore Stampede, part of Strathmore Heritage Days which runs from July 30 through August 3.

“We’re going like a hundred miles an hour, but we are going to be there,” said Pascal Del Guercio, who has been the chair for the rodeo and chuckwagons on the Strathmore Rodeo Committee for 36 years.

“We’ve actually been working the last two or three months on 2010. Every year, we plan from 15 months out to 15 minutes before,” but as they count down to this year’s event, the focus is on 2009.

“We’ve re-built the infield and the racetrack, and the graders are within an hour to an hour and a half of being finished,” he said of some of the improvement the committee has made to the rodeo grounds since last year. “We brought sand in from different locations and we’ve mixed it in and everybody’s quite happy with what our outcome is, and it looks really good.”

And the committee is expecting more than 400 contestants, who will compete for more than $250,000 in cash and a silver buckle to the first place winner of each event.

“We get them custom made every year by Montana Silver and we make them fairly unique,” Del Guercio said of the buckles. “There aren’t a lot of rodeos giving buckles anymore and we’re fortunate to be one of the ones with loyal sponsors that keep sponsoring those events with buckles. It’s kind of nice for the cowboys to walk away and have a memento of their victory.”

According to Del Guercio, aside from all the rodeo action, which includes the six major events, team roping, novice saddle bronc, novice bareback, boys steer riding, and the Canadian Championship Finals in the horse racing and cow milking, spectators can also take in the event’s annual running with the bulls

“And we’ve got that spiced up a little bit different than before. I don’t want to let it totally out of the bag, but what we’ve done is out of the 30 bulls, we used to divide them into two groups of 15. Now, we’re dividing them into three groups and the last group is only two or three bulls and it has made the event far more exciting. Let’s just say we cleaned out the arena pretty clean with the bulls at the end.”

There’s also going to be a new act unveiled by professional trick rider Niki Cammaert during Saturday’s performance.

“It will make headlines,” Del Guercio enthused, but again encouraging would-be spectators to check it out for themselves. “It’s modeled after someone who tried this once in the U.S. in another category, not in rodeo, and I think she’s got it down perfect.

“Overall, we’ve got some of the top contestants. We’ve definitely got some of the top stock here,” Del Guercio emphasized. “And, it’s looking like it’s going to be a sunny gorgeous weekend and we’ve got lots of beer to drink, so come on down.”

The 11th annual Mighty Fraser Rodeo kicks off July 31 in Abbottsford, B.C. and runs through August 2, while the North Peace Stampede at Grimshaw, Alta. will get underway this Saturday. Performances at the two-day rodeo get underway at 1:30 p.m. each afternoon at the Lac Cardinal Rodeo Grounds.