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Former Stampede Princess ready to hold court in Cowboy Up Challenge

July 8, 2010

CALGARY --- Royalty will take the reins at the Calgary Stampede this weekend as the sport of Extreme Cowboy Racing makes its Canadian debut.

Kateri Cowley is already familiar with the camera’s glare after serving as a Calgary Stampede Princess during the 2009 season, and growing up around the entertainment industry on the motion picture-friendly Rafter Six Ranch Resort near Exshaw, Alta. As the 2010 Stampede bursts out of the chutes, she’ll be in the spotlight once again — carrying local hopes during the inaugural Calgary Stampede Cowboy Up Challenge, the first event held on Canadian soil for a equestrian sport that’s spread like wildfire in the United States.

“Being a Stampede Princess was really busy, but amazing. We went everywhere from schools to pancake breakfasts to senior citizens’ homes to the Grey Cup in Montreal,” says Cowley, who estimates she made 400 appearances as a member of Stampede royalty. “It was startling to see just how well-known, worldwide, the Stampede was. When we were in Las Vegas (for the National Finals Rodeo), we told people we were from Canada, and they’d say: ‘Oh, you mean from Calgary?’

“I was still doing Stampede Princess activities when someone sent me the link about Extreme Cowboy Racing, and the more I read the more excited I got. It just seemed right up my alley,” adds Cowley. “It’s such a challenge, with so many of the different aspects of Western and even English horsemanship. I know people will be thinking, ‘Well, let’s see how this Calgary Stampede Princess does.’ But I’m ready.”

This inaugural Cowboy Up Challenge will be a family affair for the Cowleys, since Kateri’s older brother David — the first person to take a horse to the top of the Calgary Tower, back in 1998 — will also making his debut in the sport inside the Pengrowth Saddledome.

Extreme Cowboy Racing, sanctioned by the Extreme Cowboy Association (EXCA) of Bluff Dale, Texas, was the brainchild of Craig Cameron, known as the “cowboy’s clinician,” and originated as a TV program on Rural Free Delivery-TV (RFD-TV) in the U.S. The sport is currently surging in popularity; in 2009, its first official season of competition, EXCA staged 70 events in 22 American states, from Hawaii across to Maine, and EXCA’s first world championship, held in Topeka, Kansas, in mid-December, drew competitors from coast to coast. More than 100 events are on the docket this season.

A timed and judged event, Extreme Cowboy Racing demands both horsemanship and speed, and challenges both horse and rider with an obstacle course that may include such challenges as moguls, bridges, log crossings, tunnels, cowboy curtains, roll backs, and water crossings, among others. Judges award points for each obstacle, on a scale of one to 10, based on criteria such as horsemanship, cadence, control, and overall execution. Horse-and-rider teams are required to complete each obstacle within a predetermined time period to collect points.

Calgary Stampede officials were keen to catch the wave, adding the Cowboy Up Challenge to the Stampede’s slate of Western equine events for 2010.

The competition will be held indoors at the Saddledome, with the first go-round starting on Saturday, July 10 at 3 p.m., the second go-round kicking off on Sunday, July 11 at 3 p.m., and the championship final getting underway on Monday, July 12 at 3 p.m. While EXCA’s sanctioned events in the U.S. feature Pro and Non-Pro riders, the Cowboy Up Challenge will field a maximum of 20 horse-and-rider teams going head to head, with no divisions based on gender or ability.

Kateri Cowley spends the majority of her time at Rafter Six Ranch training trail horses for guests, and previously trained and rode cutting horses in Texas for six months back in 2006. But she’s also well acquainted with the entertainment industry, whose relationship with the ranch dates back to the 1940s. Kateri has been a wrangler and a stunt double on television shows (CBC’s Heartland), movies (Resurrecting the Champ, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), and countless music videos, commercials, and travel TV programs.

“When I was nine, there was a movie by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (How the West Was Fun) filmed out at the ranch here,” she recalls. “It just so happened that I was the same age as them, so they asked me to double for them and ride in some of their shots. I just started doing more and more of that. Whenever an opportunity arises, I take it — just see if I can do it.”

David Cowley has also followed his heart into the acting game, spending two winters at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles (“right in the back lot of Universal Studios,” he says) and attending stunt school in Seattle. When he’s not appearing in films and commercials — his latest production was Northern Lights, starring LeAnn Rimes — David manages horse operations out at Rafter Six.

Ordinarily, Extreme Cowboy Race competitors would qualify for the sport’s world championship by collecting regional points. But EXCA has sweetened the Stampede pot considerably by giving the Cowboy Up Challenge champion a free pass directly to the 2010 worlds — drawing the elite of the sport, such as Robin Bond of Vista, Calif., Sally Addington of Polk, Penn., and Bill Cameron of Rosamond, Calif., to the Stampede City as a result.

Kateri Cowley, though, is no pushover. Back in March, she won the Craig Cameron Extreme Cowboy Race Clinic at the Corral on Stampede Park from a field of 20 locals. She and her mount Kokanee, a 10-year-old gelding, are ready for their close-up. “This is a sport of true horsemanship,” she says, “and Kokanee has been my greatest teacher and best friend.”

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