The Western Heritage Weekend promises to offer fans of traditional western events even more to see and do this weekend. In addition to the miniature horse show happening at the Calouri Pavillion, the pony chuckwagon and chariot races, mutton busting and other events, the Super 6 team roping event that had been held in Sundre for about the last 15 years has moved to the MegaDome this year.
Tami Gardner, general manager of the OAS, said organizers of the roping event decided to move it to Olds to eliminate the possibility of rain hampering the competition.
It will be taking place on Saturday and Sunday.
“Because of their vulnerability in an outdoor venue, the producers of the event elected to move the Super 6 team roping to Olds so that they could be under cover,” Gardner said.
The all-pro pony chuckwagon and chariot races will be performing all three days.
Gardner said the impetus for getting all the events together was to maintain as many traditional western events on the weekend following the civic holiday — traditionally the fair and rodeo weekend — as possible. She said the Western Heritage Weekend has been in the works since it was decided to discontinue the Olds fair.
“Our hardworking and dedicated volunteer committee that has worked within the context of the traditional fair, and in the two years following the (discontinuation) of the fair have continued to work very hard to produce a chuckwagon event for the community to enjoy. It had always been one of the crowd favourites,” she said.
Gardner said the OAS has seen a benefit from breaking all the events of the fair into separate proceedings throughout the year.
“The draft horse classic on the long weekend of July was very well attended and extraordinarily well received. We're doing a lot of the same things, we're just doing them with a more targeted and more successful focus,” she said.
As for a renewed rodeo coming to Olds, Gardner said the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association has strict criteria governing what types of rodeo events can be sanctioned by them.
“It's challenging to segment just bareback or just bulldogging. However, the ag society's position has remained consistent … that we are committed to working with any community volunteers that want to create events that fall within the parameters of fiscal responsibility at the ag society's grounds. If there was a good business case to be presented for doing a traditional rodeo again, where the financial … risk was minimal, we would certainly take a look at that gladly,” she said.
