Good Morning, Howard!
Thanks for your kind words. :-)
Yes, Pritchard is a BCRA Sanctioned event, the same as Barierre. Access is
really good from 3 sides and behind the bucking shoots is a wall of evergreens,
so cleaner backgrounds in most cases, that the usual array of horse trailers
and trucks. A really nice place, with good facilities and a very small
grandstand.
Sunday, I went for slack.
For those not familiar with rodeos, a normal rodeo runs from 1 pm to 5 pm.
There is time, then, for only a certain number of events. If they get more
entries than they can fit into the time, they "take up the slack" by running
the additional entries in the morning...usually starting at 9 am. On rare
occasions, they will have slack on both Saturday and Sunday, but usually it's
just Sunday morn.
Slack is pretty low key, with a fellow announcing the contestants and their
scores, but it does not have the professional rodeo announcer or rodeo clown.
That, they keep for the "real" rodeo, in the afternoon. (Pritchard, being one
of the smaller rodeos, does not have a clown, though their announcer was
excellent.)
In Pritchard's case, they had time for roughly 15 sets of team ropers each day,
but had over 100 entries, so the slack was mostly team roping, although there
was some additional barrel racing as well. No steer wrestling or bull riding in
slack, at least, not this time.
The cost for 4 hours entertainment is usually $10 to $12 per person and
includes parking. But, Sunday was even better!
I turned up at about 9:05am to find the ticket gate without staff. So, I
parked the car, got my gear and went to the rodeo office, asking to pay.
"Slack is free", the lady told me. "But, I intend to stay all day, so I should
pay you.", I said. "They won't throw you out of the stands ... if they wanted
your money, they should have had someone on the gate!". With that, she gave
me a day sheet and sent me on my way!
I'm still processing images from both days of the Pritchard rodeo and will have
more to share, soon.
I, too, am sorry that you could not join me. We've done Barierre, now you need
to join us for Falkland or Pritchard ... or both!
Best to Esther!
David.
HI David,
Another great action shot!! I assume you get to walk where you want at
Pritichard. Sorry I couldn't be there to follow you around.
Cheers
Howard
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