Alex's 1st Sandhills Adventure: Circle C Rodeo

We were at my (Mak) company's ranch over the Memorial Day weekend. During this weekend it is a local tradition to have what is called the "Circle C Rodeo" in nearby Cody, NE. People from all over the surrounding area come to have a day of friendly competition and fun. After we got some work done at the ranch we headed over. The Circle C Rodeo was a fun event and a great way to break up the work we were doing. Going into the event, I (Alex) thought it was just going to be a normal rodeo, for the most part it was. However, there were several events that were not very common. Although our ranch is in the Central Time Zone, Cody is in Mountain time. This was also Alex's first time in the Mountain Time Zone, so he was pretty excited.

They are trying their hardest to keep the pony from running off

 One of my favorite events was the Wild Pony Race. The pony race involves teams of 3 kids. The ponies were placed into the chutes and then released (they were wild ponies too, never been ridden) the team had to take control of their pony, or get the rope back if they lost it, then they needed to saddle and then ride the pony for a little bit.  They needed to ride them around a barrel without being led and then unsaddle them. These ponies very obviously hadn't been halter broke either. They pulled right through the hands of two teams at first who spent the entire 5 minutes of allotted time just attempting to catch them in the first place. No ponies or kids were hurt!

They have the pony secured & are trying to hold it still to saddle it

It was very entertaining to watch, especially if they lost the rope, it would be a challenge to corner the pony and get the rope back. Other times they would get the saddle on the pony, but it wouldn't be tight, so they would get on to ride and then the saddle would end up on the underside causing the rider to fall off! Not to mention that the kids were comically large for the little ponies. Their feet almost touched the ground, so when they went to bucking it wasn't too bad of a fall. Not to mention the little cowboys who elected to be pony bronc riders were wearing safety vests. No one was actually successful in catching, saddling, riding, and unsaddling their pony in time, but one group was able to ride it for a little bit before the rider got bucked off and the pony took off running with the others. Overall, it was very entertaining to watch these little kids try to wrangle up the ponies and try to ride them!

Another fun event was the "Hide Race".  I heard the event announced and didn't even know what to expect. Then someone walks out carrying this huge buffalo hide, complete with the tail! 

They had a buffalo hide which they drug across the arena, then someone would stand by the barrel and jump onto the buffalo hide and ride it across the finish line.  Most people made the jump just fine, however there were a few people that didn't finish that well. I was wondering how more people didn't get hurt doing some of these events! In these pictures the person on the hide was wearing a rain slicker. Almost every pickup person wore a rain coat of some kind to protect them incase they didn't stay on the hide! 

What you don't see is how fast this event goes. It is completely over with in a matter of seconds. The horse takes off at a dead gallop and only slows down for a little bit to let the person jump on the hide. There were some teams that would take off really fast and whip the hide and the person around the turn very quickly! It was also interesting to see how the different horses reacted to pulling this huge buffalo hide that was usually air borne on the gallop down to pick up their teammate. My favorite part of this event was how it was usually a family event with the parent riding the horse and the kid jumping on the hide.

One of the last events held for the evening was the Ranch Horse Race. Although all the other events were held at the arena, this one was on a fairly flat and long piece of land that was mowed with some gentle hills at the end for the runaway horses to slow down in. Trucks, trailers, and spectators lined the stretch to get the best possible view they could and root for the person they knew who was racing. One of the people who lived at the ranch even raced her horse named Sugar. It was amazing to see how fast some of these horses could go! There were enough entries that they ran two heats and took the fastest two horses from the heats to have a final heat. Unfortunately Sugar came in third in her heat and didn't make it to the final race. Since Sugar was out, my bet was on this black horse that one the first heat. The horse who won was behind for the first part of the race, but then it ran to the outside and left all of the other horses to fall behind it. This was a fast horse!

The finish line shot of the second heat

After the rodeo fun, there was a BBQ in the park which had a lot of good food: some good smoked beef sandwiches and any dessert you could think of.  A lot of people there just came for the BBQ. It was neat to see an event like this bring a rural community together like this did.

Afterward there was a dance that was supposed to start at 8:30, it was only 7:30 by the time we left the park even though it felt like it was 8:30.  That is probably because it was 8:30 central time! The rodeo was just across the mountain time border giving us an extra hour. I'm sure the dance was a good time, but even leaving at 7:30 their time would have meant getting back to the ranch by 9:30 our time.




This is the third blog post in the "Alex's 1st Sandhills Adventure" series. Please stay tuned for the rest of the series:

• Geocaching the Sandhills
• The Cowboy Trail
• Smith Falls State Park