Musical Ride delights Westman crowds
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/07/2016 (3582 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Audience members at the Westoba Agricultural Centre of Excellence this weekend found the RCMP performance to be magical as well as musical.
The RCMP Musical Ride drew a crowd of roughly 700 Saturday night, with an audience of similar size anticipated for Sunday.
Some attendees were local while others had travelled from out of town, but they all shared one common passion.
“I’ve always loved horses. Never owned one, but have always loved horses, and we just came as a family to watch the musical ride,” Sharon Dutchak recalled of her first RCMP show in the late 1970s.
On Saturday, she and her 13-year-old daughter, Chelsey Dutchak, came from Strathclair for the show.
It was Chelsey’s first time seeing the performance, but she wasn’t hesitant about the part she was looking forward to most: “Trick riding.”
The Canadian Northern Lights Drill Team, consisting of 12 riders, warmed up the crowd. With four riders from Brandon’s division, the team showed off their precision drill skills, which make use of synchronization and musical routines.
Shelby Thue, a trick rider from Saskatchewan, were next up in the arena.
She and her horse, Smokey, wowed the crowd as Smokey raced around the ring and Thue dangled from a single stirrup.
Finally, a troop of 32 horses and their riders marched into the arena.
The contrast created by the stark red of the Mounties’ serge and the glistening coat of their horses was a sight that awed the audience.
Their routines spread the contingent throughout the arena, sometimes weaving riders through each other, and at other moments holding them in a single line.
Once they had finished, both riders and horses were wet with sweat, but it was only to the satisfaction of those both in the stands and in the ring.
Winnipeg-raised Const. Janis Kelly entered her second year with the RCMP Musical Ride in January, but had been posted in Nova Scotia for almost seven years prior to that.
“Always in the back of my mind (I) wanted to do the ride. It’s a tradition, the history of the force, the mounted police,” Kelly said.
“I’m very proud to be Manitoban right now.”
The glory was not lost to those in the crowd.
“I respect all that (the RCMP) do for our country and I just think it’s phenomenal that they can get together and put on such a performance,” Sharon Dutchak said.
“It’s part of our country’s heritage.”
» aantoneshyn@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @AAntoneshyn