CALGARY — The Stampede’s controversial chuck wagon races are the “oil sands” of the sports world: Unfairly criticized as major health hazards and politically incorrect except in Western Canada.
This week, controversy about the “chucks” restarted when a horse at the Stampede had to be put down after a race due to a serious leg injury. Such incidents occur from time to time and always cause lots of controversy, as did the unusual duck incident in tailings ponds in the oil sands a handful of years ago.
Mishaps are unfortunate, but critics are mostly off base in both cases.
Facts are that petroleum from the oil sands is no dirtier, in terms of emissions and other health hazards, than is California crude oil, many other imports to the US and certainly coal. Even so, American environmentalists spread inaccuracies and threaten to seriously injure the oil sands industry and Canadian living standards.
Politically incorrect everywhere
Likewise, the “chucks” get an unfair rap. Injuries to these thoroughbred horses are miniscule compared with traditional horse racing. Most importantly, the horses in the chuck wagon races — a team of four horses and accompanied by two “outriders” on horseback — are often “rescue horses” bought in Toronto, or from Woodbine race track, after they have been discarded after the age of three by owners and destined for the glue factory.
For instance, Grant Profit, his wife, two daughters and their 18 horses have been on the 50-day chuck wagon racing circuit for years and most of their horses are “rescues”. I talked with him in his stable this week and he showed me to one of his team of horses called “Forever Grand”. A beautiful thoroughbred, this horse won $1.2 million in traditional racing, finished third in the 2002 Queen’s Plate and was dumped by his owners because he had a chip in his leg and they felt he had peaked.
“We bought him, did the $2,000 surgery to remove the chip, trained him and he’s had six good racing years. Last year, he became Horse of the Year in chucks and is a wonderful horse. We renamed him `Grandy,’” he said.
The real horse abuse problem is back east
Profit said his horses race 25 times apiece during the 50-day chuck wagon season each year and then they spend the rest of their time in his pastures and paddocks. By contrast, these horses raced most days when they were younger back east and spent virtually all the time locked up in stalls between races. They were quickly abandoned at a young age even if big winners. Another horse he rescued, named “Prince”, had won $680,000 in purses before being dumped. These horses were geldings and were considered worthless once finished with racing and most are destroyed unless sold.
“When I go east and buy these horses and drive off I realize how lucky they are compared to the others left behind,” he said.
“In chucks there are fewer injuries compared with jockey racing, about one-tenth as many. Wagon racing is way kinder than where these horses came from.”
Off-season, Grant operates a truck business that moves oil rigs, and the Profit family live on a 40-acre spread near Cochrane Alberta. He has horses older than 15 years that still race and he doesn’t discard horses after their careers end. He puts them out to pasture.
“When people say chuck wagon racing is cruel my family find this hurtful because we know how we look after our horses. I told a newspaper last year, and got in trouble for saying this, that these horses are looked after better than a lot of kids in the city,” he said. “Without us, these horses wouldn’t be here.”
The chucks are a pillar of the Stampede which is, like most Alberta endeavors, an enormous private-sector success. The 10-day event will celebrate its centenary next year and the city’s entrepreneurial people, who volunteer on 50 committees to keep it going, attract 1.2 million and generate $127.2 million in economic activity.
The Alberta advantage
Underpinning this success and the ebullient mood here this year is oil at $100 a barrel and another oil sands boom despite detractors south of the border. In 2010, Alberta produced 2.1 million barrels a day of oil, 1.5 million of which was from the oil sands or nearly triple in ten years.
It’s a culture of enterprise and western traditions that has sprung despite its relative isolation and the world’s most hostile climatic conditions. And critics label this place without justification.
“Without the oil sands and the oil patch how could we survive?” said Grant “and without wagon racing these horses wouldn’t survive and thrive either.”
Source: National Post
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