The Sundre Rodeo Association held a successful 9th annual Bulls & Wagons event over the weekend.
Chris Hansen from Caroline won the bull riding event with a score of 88 points, with Edgar Durazo from Mexico placing second with a score of 86 points.
Chance Thomson took first place in the chuckwagon races, with Jake Van Ringen placing second. Cole Adamson placed first in the chariot races and Louis Johner placed second.
There were 30 bull riders and close to 75 chariot and wagon competitors registered for the weekend.
Jack Nichol, organizer of Bulls & Wagons, said the weekend went over well and there was a good turnout. It attracted people from across Central Alberta, as well as British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
The Friday 6 p.m. show included children's wild pony races, chariot races and wagon races. Saturday morning there was a pancake breakfast at the grounds, followed by the same events as Friday and bull riding at 6 p.m. Sunday's 1:30 p.m. performance showcased the same events as Friday.
“It's similar to a rodeo,” said Nichol. “It's a fun event, if you like races or bull riding and there's very good races.”
He said the difference in the event from rodeo is that the chuckwagons are pony wagons, as they are smaller than horse wagons and the horses are roughly 59 inches.
There were also events sponsored by Bulls & Wagons and the Sundre & District Historical Society happening at the Sundre Museum on Saturday. A street dance hit the museum's parking lot and there were also children's activities and beer gardens.
Wagon and chariot races used to run in Sundre about 15 years ago, said Nichol.
“They discontinued after a real wet year where they couldn't rodeo,” he said. “When I took over doing the sponsorship for the rodeo I had a lot of people asking me ‘when are you going to bring the races back?' So it got me thinking about what could we do to bring it back,” he explained.
“We ended up introducing bull riding as well, so we just called it Bulls & Wagons.”
He said the event originally included two evenings of bull riding, but it didn't attract enough of a crowd to cover the cost of the entertainment.
He said there will be a few changes in store for next year's event.
