The “Championship of Champions” Indian horse relay races are back in Casper for the weekend of Sept. 20 to 22. The top teams will converge at the Casper Fairgrounds to compete in a high-adrenaline sport that requires speed, finesse and teamwork.
The event is the 16th and final race of a season that’s lasted all summer long. Eighty teams will be competing, coming from as far as Washington, North Dakota and Canada. That’s up from last year’s 63 teams.
Relay teams are made up of three horses and four people. The rider switches horses at top speed with every lap around the track with the help of the rest of the team. And as if that’s not enough, the jockey is riding bareback the whole time.
Calvin Ghost Bear is the president of Horse Nations Indian Relay, which hosts the final race along with the Northern Arapaho Tribe. He said seeing teams grow over the season and throughout is a big part of the excitement.
“You watch some of these teams who started out maybe three years ago, four years ago. And now they're at a level where they're competing at a championship level. So it's good and it's good to watch the teams, how they mature,” he said.
According to Ghost Bear, hotels around Casper are all sold out and they’re expecting a big turnout for the event. He said participation and interest in the sport has been on the rise in recent years.
“Our sport is growing and it definitely is expanding into new venues and new locations, so we're pretty excited about that. We definitely want to be there to help it expand and we definitely want to be involved in the expansion and where it goes. It's an exciting time for us,” he said.
Ghost Bear said it’s the last year of their official contract with Casper, which has hosted the event in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023. But he said they want to come back.
“We've created a relationship. We hope going into 2025, we're able to sit down and renegotiate our contract and hopefully bring this event back here in 2025,” he said.
Last year, the Carlson Relay team from the Blackfeet Nation in Montana took the top prize for the men’s race and the Timentwa Relay team from the Colville Tribe in Washington took the top prize in the women’s relay division. There will be races for men, women, juniors, youth and kids throughout the weekend.
