Page 58 - Speedhorse May 2019

Indian Relay celebrates the horse
while recreating history in the first extreme sport. by Richard Chamberlain • photos by Diana Volk
Because you are reading this magazine, we assume you’ve been around horse racing and racehorses for a while. So you think you’ve seen it all, right? Here’s something completely different: jockeys changing horses in races, rather than between races.
“We look to the horse as a brother,” says Calvin Ghost Bear, 53, of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. “We looked to the horse as a brother in arms in combat when we were at war against different tribes and the cavalry. The horse took care of us. Now, we honor our brother in Indian Relay.”
A flourishing sport among Native American tribes in the U.S. Northwest and First Nations in Canada, Indian Relay derives from the expertise of native warriors using and changing horses in combat, skills and techniques that were shaped into games at least as far back as
the Twenties. The races today usually pit half
a dozen or so teams with one rider and three horses apiece – one horse for the start and two for the exchanges. Depending on the track, the riders typically go half- to three-quarters of a mile from a standing start, then change horses and go the same distance again before changing (again) and racing to the finish.
“It’s so exciting at the exchanges,” says
Jamie Howard, 49, a self-described “paleface” who works with the Horse Nations Indian
Relay Council. “The exchanges are where the excitement really is, when those riders come into their box, bail off, jump on their next horse and they’re gone!”
The Horse Nations Indian Relay Council (HNIRC) accredits a growing schedule of races from Washington and Oregon through Idaho,
Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas, from major league tracks such as Emerald Downs near Seattle, to half-mile bullrings way out on the far side of beyond. New races for the 2019 season include The Sioux Nation Challenge that will be June 29-30 at the Stanley County Fairgrounds in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, where AQHA has conducted Bank Of America Challenge races. Indian Relay has been a longtime tradition
at the Pendleton Roundup in Oregon, which this season will be run Sept. 13-15 as the last accredited race heading into the Championship of Champions.
HNIRC opens its 2019 season on May 25-26 at Morningside Park in Gillette, Wyoming, two weeks before the Wyoming Horse Racing Association begins its scheduled races. More than 14 meets will
56 SPEEDHORSE, May 2019
RENEWED