STAMPEDE RANCH
The Calgary Stampede purchased its ranch in 1961 in an effort to guarantee the production of bucking stock and improve its quality with a carefully managed "Born to Buck" breeding program.
The ranch covers about 20,500 acres of leased land and 1,500 acres of deeded property, broken down into 14 different pastures. There are 70 miles of fence.
Originally, the cost of the property was $200,000. It is valued today is in the $3.4 million range.
There are six species of native and tame grass, fed by an average of nine inches (or 22 cm) of precipitation each year. In addition to pasture, the stock is also given a ration of grain and hay when necessary; amounting to 220 tons of alfalfa and 22,000 bushels of oats annually.
Bullpound Creek crosses about six miles of the property, providing a natural source of water to the stock. In addition, there is an irrigation canal at the northeast end of the ranch and a pumping system to a series of dugouts.
The land is also resource rich, containing about 30 producing oil and gas wells.
Bucking stock shares existence with more than 20 species of birds, White Tail and Mule deer and Pronghorn antelope, seven different fur-bearing animals and six types of rodents.
GETTING READY FOR STAMPEDE
The horses that are brought to the Stampede are put on feed - oats and hay - about six weeks beforehand.
All except the Ponoka bunch will be returned to the ranch for R & R before getting back in the truck and coming to Calgary. Home at the Stampede grounds is a series of pens behind the infield stands. Throughout the 10 days of Stampede, the horses are shuffled back and forth between the ranch and the grounds so they don't have to stand in pens for the entire period.
The best horses, the "top end" as they're called, the Papa Smurfs, Go Wilds and Guilty Cats, will be bucked a maximum of three times - 24 seconds in all. Many will get two trips, some only one.
In June, one truck load, about 25 horses, is hauled to Innisfail, where they are bucked once at Jack Daine's ranch rodeo. Another load goes to Ponoka for their Stampede and three loads make the short trip down the road to the one-day "home rodeo" at Hand hills.
STOCK CONTRACTING
The Stampede produces several rodeos each year in Canada and supplies stock to many other rodeos in Western Canada and the United States. It also provides bucking horses for one-day convention rodeos in the city and sends its younger stock to rodeo schools and college rodeos. These horses are easily identified by the brand C lazy S on the left shoulder. The Calgary Stampede is one of the is one of the very few rodeos in the world with a registered brand of its own. Only one horse with the Stampede brand has ever been sold - that was a horse named "Hash Harrison", sold to James Harper of the Harper & Morgan outfit in Iowa, LA. The philosophy behind not selling horses carrying its brand is the fear that they could be mistreated and that might reflect back on its reputation.
The Stampede Ranch will send horses to about 20 rodeos each year. The longest haul is about 1,400 miles to Las Vegas in December. The truck stops once or twice en route to let the horses out for as much as a day and a night.
THE BUCKING STOCK BREEDING PROGRAM
In 1961, Stampede Executive and Committee agreed that 50 mares would be the foundation of the Stampede breeding program. Today, there are more than 400 horses living at the ranch, including 62 brood mares.
The cost of raising a bucking horse is not cheap; each one represents an investment of about $10,000 from the time they're born until they reach the age of five.
It's less expensive to buy a mature, but unproven, bucking horse at a sale. They go anywhere from $1,200 to $6,000, but spoiled saddle horses are on the decline with the improvement of breeding programs. At one time there was eight sales each year in Canada, but today there are only two. The value of a proven bucking horse, one that could be selected for the Canadian and world finals, runs from $8,000 to $50,000.
Horses obtained privately or through sales go through a month-long program before they are integrated into the Stampede home herd. They are branded, cleaned up, vaccinated and blood tested to insure they are disease-free. Then the new horses are held in a separate pasture so they get over a cold or anything else they may have picked up before arriving at the ranch.
Once they are introduced to the herd, pecking order is established and the new horses are slowly accepted into the herd.
Of the herd, only 165 are actually called on to perform in the arena and the busiest of those, maybe 30 of them - might be away from home for a total of 30 days a year. The most any of the horses will be asked to buck is about 15 times. That works out to 120 seconds (or two minutes) of labor per year. In return, these horses are fed oats and hay in addition to free-range grass, plus each gets its feet trimmed and hair done before each trip to town and they have free medical care.
Then there is the rest, the other 185 horses - stallions, mares and the prospects of the future, everything from weanlings to four-year-old's. The colts are not hauled until they are five, though they may get tried out a couple of times a year when they are three or four.
