Page 44 - Speedhorse Canada Spring 2020

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”
44 SPEEDHORSE CANADA Spring 2020
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