The first ride on Thursday was fast-paced. The horses were excited and the teams were ready to pull. The only shots Alexis could get were with her tiny GoPro camera, since she was on horseback. This shot shows Bart Bilden, a rancher from Lavina, and his horse Whiskey from the first stop on the trail to let the horses rest.
Roger Sprague has the lead wagon and Bonnie Sprague serves as his outrider. An outrider’s job is to steady and gentle the horses and to be extra eyes for the driver, to make be sure the horses aren't having any problems.
Bonus photo: This photo shows Roger Sprague's grandfather, Ernest Sprague, pulling into Miles City on July 4, 1913, with the same wagon that Roger uses. He had just delivered a herd of remount horses to Fort Keogh and was bringing the boys into town for a drink.
Rancher Roger Sprague’s annual Miles City wagon train started on a warm and calm Wednesday evening on the Coffee Ranch just north of Miles City.
Wagon train enthusiasts and their outriders gathered that evening to set up camp and prepare for a 14-mile wagon train on Thursday and a 12-mile trail into Miles City on Friday to officially open the Miles City Bucking Horse Sale.
Sprague comes from an old ranching family whose great grandfather trailed into the Rosebud Valley of southeastern Montana in 1881. Sprague and his wife Bonnie still ranch in the valley. The chuck wagon he still uses today is a restored Peter Schuttler roundup wagon that his grandfather Ernest Sprague used in the early 1900s.
