FANS SWING their clanging cowbells and tiptoe around steaming piles of horse dung as they make their way to the bleachers. They peer down the racecourse at athletes who are wearing cowboy hats, fringed chaps and snowsuits. Vendors sell sweatshirts that read: “Will shake my ass for cowboys”. It’s a sunny day in Heber City, Utah, and the first-ever pro skijoring tour is about to begin.
Skijoring is what happens when the rodeo meets the winter Olympics. A rider on horseback pulls a skier by a rope through a snowy obstacle course as fast as possible. The skier must navigate slalom gates, collect rings and clear jumps—all while hanging on for dear life. Wipeouts are plentiful. “If you don’t require dental work at the end”, says an announcer, “you’ve succeeded.” The six-race tour culminates with the championship in Salt Lake City in February.
The Mountain West’s blend of skiing and ranching culture makes skijoring a natural fit. But the sport doesn’t have American roots. “Skijoring” is derived from a Norwegian word meaning “ski driving”. Enthusiasts say it originated with indigenous people in Scandinavia, who harnessed reindeer to pull them across frozen lands. After skijoring was demonstrated at the winter Olympics in St Moritz in 1928, it started to catch on. Brian Gardner reckons there were only about a dozen races across the American West when he started the Heber City event in 2017. Back then only about 1,500 people showed up. This year, Mr Gardner and his partners expected 10,000. The goal is to demonstrate the sport at the 2034 Olympics in Utah.
The best athletes have some experience in ski racing or downhill skiing. Practising is almost impossible. Tiffany Harris and James Dillon, a married couple, thought wakeboarding and snowmobiling might help prepare them. But they say there is no way to simulate a horse’s inconsistent gait at 40mph. Skiers must learn when to climb the rope, to get closer to the horse, and when they need more slack to finesse the jumps. “There is an art to it,” says Bryson Threatt, an aspiring pro. Experience is an asset. The fastest time your correspondent witnessed came during the century division, in which the ages of the skier and rider need to equal at least 100.
Not all fans are cowpokes or avid skiers. One group watches the NFL playoffs on a battery-powered TV while they wait for their friends to compete. Newcomers to skijoring need only listen to the team names to get the gist. After “Blazing Saddlez” and “50 Shades of Hay” is “Two Idiots and a Rope”. ■
Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief, our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important political news, and Checks and Balance, a weekly note that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters.