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Wildrose Rodeo finals return to Barrhead

With summer coming to a close, another rodeo season is too and with it comes the Wildrose Rodeo Association (WRA) finals. Local rodeo announcer Randy Schmidt says the finals, which run from Sept.
Breakaway roping is just one of the many events attendees of the Wildrose Rodeo Association finals will get to see next week in Barrhead.
Breakaway roping is just one of the many events attendees of the Wildrose Rodeo Association finals will get to see next week in Barrhead.

With summer coming to a close, another rodeo season is too and with it comes the Wildrose Rodeo Association (WRA) finals.

Local rodeo announcer Randy Schmidt says the finals, which run from Sept. 14 to 17 at the Barrhead Agrena, are in their 32nd year and noted that if people are interested in volunteering, they should get in touch with the association.

“If anybody wants to work gates or to man a bar, we’ll figure something out. It takes a big load off our shoulders, especially when there’s always 10 different things going on with events like this and if we don’t have to worry about one aspect, that’s good. We probably should have been putting the call out for volunteers all those other years too but it’s a new year,” Schmidt said.

Since the mid-80s, the WRA has been bringing the best North Central Alberta region stock and its best cowboys to Barrhead.

“These finals are like the Grey Cup for these folks. It’s hard to deny the excitement you feel when you get to this point. You rodeo hard all year and you do the best you can to earn yourself a decent payday — the main difference being what you could bank in some other place like Hinton, what you earn there for a whole weekend, is the same amount you’d earn in Barrhead for one day of competition.”

Schmidt said one of the bigger changes is in the way the finals will be opened.

“We’ve had trick riding in the past and it’s always a fun way to start the rodeo off,” he said, adding organizers felt they would like to see something different.

“So they settled on something called ‘Roman Riding’ where it’s one rider riding two horses. That’s one foot in one horse’s stirrup and the other in the second horse’s stirrup. It’s only a five-minute thing but it’s different than we’ve done in the past.”

Schmidt said social events such as the cowcutta where cowboys are auctioned off to benefit a charity or other local non-profits, have been moved to the Bablitz Exhibition Hall.

“We moved all of the events we’ve held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights to a bigger space and hopefully it will allow everyone to be able to hear the auctioneers better, especially with the cowcutta. We just really wanted to make sure that word gets around and that everyone who comes to the finals, that they know the social evening parts following the rodeo performances will be in the hall, not in the multipurpose room like we did last year,” Schmidt said.

On a question about whether the calf scramble would make an appearance, Schmidt said no.

“Neither the calf-scramble nor the sheep riding will be part of the finals, but we will of course be doing the boot race and who knows, we do the team-based wild pony riding event for kids so maybe we’ll change it up next year and throw one of those other events in too,” Schmidt said.

Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Schmidt by phone at 780-674-6425.

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