Here's an exciting way to spend a Labor Day weekend:

Thundering Hooves


Since the mid-1980s the small town of Clinton, Arkansas has each year played host to the annual National Championship Chuckwagon Races. The event lasts all of the week before Labor Day. Thousands of horse lovers congregate to camp out, attend shows, seminars on horsemanship, trail rides, and other events, and watch the actual races. These are run all week, culminating in the final races on Sunday. For two years I have seen the Sunday races with family. In recent years some five thousand horses (plus several hundred mules and donkeys) have been in attendance, making the Chuckwagon Races, in terms of the sheer number of equines involved, the largest equestrian event in the world.

The races take place in a small valley on the banks of a fork in the Little Red River that serves as a natural arena. A rocky bluff, some thirty feet high, serves as the grandstand area. There are no bleachers here. The ground has been roughly terraced to provide a place for spectators to set up their own chairs. Many also bring in portable picnic shelters and awnings to provide shade. A prominent spur of rock serves as a press box for the announcers and officials.

Behind the grandstand area lie fields that serve as parking lots. The other 51 weeks of the year this is a working ranch. There are also several small buildings designed to look like Old West businesses. One serves as a stage for musical events and the final race announcements. Rows of vendors sell fairground food, leather goods, saddles, and various souvenirs, mostly with an equestrian theme.

The real action takes place in front of the grandstand, down in the valley. There is no proper track, just a rough course. Beyond the course a spectator can see hundreds of horse trailers and campers. This is the outer edge of an encampment that stretches for some two miles through the river bottoms. The scene has been likened to a horse-lover’s version of the great annual biking festival at Sturgis.

The Sunday events begin with the extreme horse and mule races. Pairs of riders race through an obstacle course laid out in the center of the race track. In addition to passing over and through obstacles, they must negotiate several tasks, including opening and closing livestock gates, tying on bales of hay and dragging them around a barrel (this involves dismounting briefly), and snatching a revolver from the top of a barrel and using it to shoot out a target. The course ends when the rider returns to the start line, coaxes his or her mount into a trailer, and shuts the gate. At the end of the races the horse and mule with the best times are raced against each other.

After this there’s a lull. Then the main events begin. First, eleven riders with American flags troop the colors across the field. Everybody rises to sing the National Anthem. Then there is a parade of horses and riders. Recently they have also begun parading a riderless wagon in memory of racers and others involved with the races who have died in the past year.

Next come the actual races. There are several divisions—Oklahoma Land Rush wagons (miniature covered wagons), “Four-Up” Mules, Buckboards, Big Mules, and “Classic” Chuckwagons. Each event has several heats of four teams each. The fastest time overall wins. In some cases there are run-offs when times are especially close.

Each team consists of a wagon driver, a “cook”, and an outrider on horseback. At the starting gun the cook and outrider throw loads into the wagon. The cook leaps into the wagon, while the outrider mounts. Outriders invariably fall well behind in the first few seconds. They must catch up and cross the finish line before their wagon makes it in order to qualify. Many don’t make it in time.

The wagons circle around barrels at the start and tear along the track, passing across the face of the grandstand area, cross a shallow but muddy ditch, and make a great loop out across the valley before passing a large tree that marks the finish line. There are some variations. Oklahoma Land Rush wagons simply run across the ditch and omit the big loop. Big Mule wagons race up and back down a very steep hill to the left of the grandstand (testing the distinctive strength and surefootedness of their teams) and also use the ditch as the finish line.

Mixed in with the wagon races are two other events. One is a bronco fanning competition of the sort one sees at some rodeos. The other and more exciting of the two is the “Snowy River” race. This begins on a hilltop across the valley from the grandstand. Horses and riders race down the hill and across the valley before disappearing from sight of most grandstand spectators as they ford the Little Red River. They then race back into view on the track and into the home stretch for the finish. It’s a grueling race of almost two miles that pushes horses and riders very hard. The top finishers make this demanding course in just over two minutes.

The wagon races are also very colorful and exciting. Spectators see a puff of smoke from the starting pistol and hear the distance-delayed bang. Cooks and outriders throw in their loads and scramble to get aboard or mount up as the wagons take off. Announcers call out the play-by-play commentary as spectators follow, cheering for their favorite teams. There’s a lot of dust, and a lot of rattling and banging as teams with names like Hee Haw Express, Three Old Men, Injury List, True Grit, and the apocalyptically-named Omega Nightmares charge along the track in the hot late-summer (In Arkansas September is a summer month) sun.

Sometimes things go dangerously wrong. In two of this year’s races teams got tangled in the harness and fell thrashing, prompting the “horse ambulance” and standby veterinarian to race out onto the track. Fortunately no horses were seriously hurt. On another occasion a horse and outrider were run down by a wagon team at the start of a race—but still managed to get underway and complete the course. Wagons have also been known to lose wheels or crash. Last year a team with a chance at a championship time essentially threw the race by slowing down to keep from endangering horses during a mishap. They won an ovation for that display of sportsmanship.

Falling riders can break bones. Riders or cooks might be dragged for a way. Last year a newspaper photographer riding in one wagon was caught in a wagon crash. As far as I know, nobody has ever been killed. This year the ambulance was called out for what seem to have been heat injuries among spectators.

Sometimes riderless horses or runaway teams leave the course and make a run for it. This is dangerous, since there are spectators on the valley floor in most directions. Riders stationed around the valley quickly and efficiently intercept and stop the runaways. The announcers sometimes say that runaways are “headed for Scotland”—Scotland, Arkansas, that is, which lies only a few miles to the west of Clinton.

All in all it’s a thrilling day, well worth seeing for anybody with any interest at all in horses and horsemanship. I’ve enjoyed it each of the two years I have attended. I’ll probably be there next year.

Very nice. This sounds like a fun time.

D -- it does indeed sound very exciting! Though I can't help noticing the presence of that very common bit of cognitive dissonance from the racing world:

All I can say is that running is something horses like to do, and it's probably no more risky for them than most sporting events that humans engage in. It's not like they're being forced to fight each other or something inherently brutal like that.

When I saw the title of this thread, the first thought that flashed through my head was "someone put cake out in our break room here at work."