Working cow horse returns to Calgary Stampede as passionate horseman pursues wider audience

The rodeo is a staple of the Calgary Stampede, but some events are less known than others.

One event in particular made its return to the grounds just last year; it’s called working cow horse or reined cow horse, and it involves a lot of skill and teamwork.

Both the horse and rider show off their skills, ripping around the dirt arena. Then, a new challenge: as a cow is brought out, the duo is tested on trapping it and stopping it from running free.

I'm on the #Stampede grounds today…

Learning about what it takes to be a working cow horse rider, how people are handling the lines, and how busy vendors have been!

Stay tuned. #yyc #CalgaryStampede pic.twitter.com/JkVWeWxOjR

— Logan Stein (@L0ganStein) July 11, 2024

Geoff Horvath is a board member with the Alberta Stock Horse Association (ASHA), and after the event was pulled from the Stampede in 2019, he says he was determined to bring it back, which happened last year.

“It’s tradition, it’s heritage: the method of training goes back to California, it goes back to Spain and if we can keep the tradition and the refinement of high-end horsemanship alive and well, and promote it to people, in front of people like the Stampede, which is a mix of family members that know it but also expose it to new people that haven’t seen it. It’s a chance for us to showcase our sport,” Horvath said.

Thursday’s event at Stampede Park was packed with people, some witnessing the sport for the first time. While faithful attendees said it’s one of the highlights of Stampede for them.

For Horvath, that makes it all worthwhile.

“The ability to show what a highly-trained animal can do at speed, and I mean, we work a cow at high speeds, and that’s what everyone comes to the cow horse for is the fence work,” he said.

He says the rider and the horse are a highly-skilled duo.

“The reigning comes before the cow, it’s like a test to see how broke your horse is,” Horvath explained. “You’ve got to jump through some hoops before we just go let you just chase a cow, we have to see that you can stop, we have to see that you can steer, we have to see that you can spin, and then once we have those core fundamentals looked after, then we go and handle a calf.”

Horvath says the history is what keeps families involved.

“It takes time to learn it and It’s like generations of people that are in the sport but there’s also generations of horses — there’s people riding granddaughters of horses or grandsons of horses that were here and it’s the lineage that keeps coming back and keeps moving forward,” Horvath said.

He remembers the first time he witnessed the sport at the Calgary Stampede.

“The first time I saw cow horse was the very first time cow horse was at Calgary,” he said. “I saw it in the Saddledome, and I don’t know if that was in the 90s — I can’t say exactly when it was — but I saw it and I’d never seen it before and I was just like ‘Woah, I ride horses but mine are nothing like what’s going on in there.’ Until I saw it, I didn’t know it could happen and I’m certain I’m not the only one that saw it here and that’s why I wanted to bring it back.

“I love the sport but I want to promote the sport as well and maybe put it in front of people like me that didn’t know what it was.”

While the cow horse competition has concluded for the 2024 Stampede, there are still plenty of rodeo events to take in on the grounds for the remaining three days of festivities.