{"id":19381,"date":"2017-09-18T23:03:10","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T05:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=19381"},"modified":"2017-09-18T23:04:08","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T05:04:08","slug":"for-crow-relay-team-it-starts-with-a-love-of-horses-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/09\/for-crow-relay-team-it-starts-with-a-love-of-horses-family\/","title":{"rendered":"For Crow relay team, it starts with a love of horses, family"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t<div id=\"slides-19381\" class=\"navis-slideshow\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slide-nav\">\n\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"prev\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"next\"><\/a>\n\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slides_container\"><div id=\"19381-slide1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Cody-close-up-9848.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Cody-close-up-9848-771x514.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>At a practice session for the River Road Relay team at Crow Agency last month, team captain Cody Brown tends to one of the team's horses. Click on the arrow at top right for more photos.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"19381-slide2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Timothyhorses-9682.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Timothyhorses-9682-771x425.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Timothy Birdinground, co-founder of the River Road Relay, leads a pair of horses into practice.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"19381-slide3\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Josiah-runs-9730-771x433.jpg*771*433\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Josiah-runs-9730.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Josiah Bad Bear, fresh off one horse, prepares to mount another during practice.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"19381-slide4\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Louis-Big-Hair-9931-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Louis-Big-Hair-9931.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Louis Big Hair is a back-holder on the River Road Relay team.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"19381-slide5\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Josiah-9870-771x500.jpg*771*500\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Josiah-9870.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Josiah Bad Bear goes racing down the track after a successful remount.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"19381-slide6\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Relay-chaos-1-771x559.jpg*771*559\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Relay-chaos-1.jpg\" \/><h6>John Warner <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Things can get pretty chaotic on race days, as attested by this photo from the 2015 All Nations Indian Relay Championships at MetraPark.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"19381-slide7\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Relay-remount.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Relay-remount-771x497.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>John Warner <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>In another scene from the 2015 championships, a ride attempting to mount his horse bites the dust instead.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><script>jQuery( document ).ready( function() { loadSlideshow( 19381, 'https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/09\/for-crow-relay-team-it-starts-with-a-love-of-horses-family\/', 7 ) } );<\/script>\n<p>CROW AGENCY \u2014 When the River Road Relay team gets together for a practice, it\u2019s all about the horses.<\/p>\n<p>The human beings involved in an Indian horse relay race certainly get a workout, and occasionally a few scrape and bruises, but at practice the horses are the focus of their intense and loving attention.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>At a training session last month at the racetrack and grandstands in Crow Agency, on the Crow Indian Reservation, four River Road teammates held their horses close, stroked their necks, ran their fingers through their manes and leaned in to whisper their encouragement or to offer soothing words.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t ever get panicky with them,\u201d team captain Cody Brown said. \u201cIf they feel your heart pumping, they\u2019re going to know. They\u2019ll know you\u2019re nervous. If you aren\u2019t nervous, they\u2019ll follow your lead. \u2026 As long as you\u2019re comfortable with the horses, and calm, you won\u2019t ever have a problem with them on the track.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That kind of patient work is needed, because once a real race starts, things can get chaotic, with five teams \u2014 each consisting of four people and three horses \u2014 crowded onto a dirt track in front of grandstands packed with loud, enthusiastic fans. Under those circumstances, horses can get balky, inclined to buck, rear and run off in any direction. So practice is a matter of getting to know them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey all have their certain ways, these horses,\u201d said Timothy Birdinground, who helped Brown form the team. \u201cYou learn what they like and what they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the practice session on a hot weeknight in Crow Agency, the River Road Relay team was preparing for the Horse Nations Indian Relay <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metrapark.com\/events\/2017\/horsenationsindianrelaychampionship\">Champion of Champions event<\/a>, set for this Friday through Sunday at MetraPark in Billings.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"well\"><div class=\"dfad dfad_pos_1 dfad_first\" id=\"_ad_652\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/mjhWkW\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/201703_capeair_variable.jpg\" alt=\"CapreAir_Variable\" width=\"510\" height=\"180\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-18069\" \/><\/a><\/div><\/div>The championship is the culmination of a summer-long series of more than 20 relay races in eight states involving a variety of Indian tribes. Teams that compete in two accredited races qualify for the Champion of Champions, and any team that wins a sanctioned race gains an automatic berth, with entry fees waived.<\/p>\n<p>Calvin Ghost Bear, president of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.horsenationsrelay.com\/\">Horse Nations Indian Relay Council<\/a>, which sponsors the championship, said 36 four-man teams are already entered in the finals, and he was hoping to have 42 teams \u2014 including several from Canada \u2014 signed on before registration closed.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, according to Bill Dutcher, MetraPark general manager, the four-day finals drew 14,600 fans. The grandstands there seat 6,200, and with standing room you could squeeze 10,000 people onto the grounds, he said. For both of the two years MetraPark has hosted the finals, the opening day, Thursday, has been hit with hard rains. This year, the three-day event starts on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think three days is going to be perfect,\u201d Dutcher said, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s really a neat event. I\u2019ve just been giving it rave reviews.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In horse relays, the rider is the baton. He starts in a standing position, jumps onto a horse and races around the track. Back at the starting line, he dismounts on the fly and then attempts to jump on a second horse, and then a third after another dash around the track.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19444\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-19444 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/River-Road-Relay-Tristan-9899.jpg\" alt=\"Tristan\" width=\"336\" height=\"257\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Timothy Birdinground&#8217;s son, Tristan, sporting a River Road Relay T-shirt, keeps a close eye on the practice session.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The terminology varies, but assisting the rider is the setup man \u2014 Brown on the River Road team \u2014 who tries to control the horses as they come in and take off. The job of the stopper, sometimes known as the mugger, is to leap in to catch the reins of the incoming horses, to get them out of the way. Birdinground is the mugger for River Road. The fourth team member is the holder, or back-holder, who hangs on to the reins of the waiting mounts until they\u2019re needed.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes the whole thing goes fluidly, each horse and teammate performing flawlessly, with smooth mounts and dismounts, a minimum of drama. But sometimes \u2014 quite often, actually \u2014 all is confusion and chaos. A horse might stand on its hind legs, kicking its front hooves in the air, or a waiting horse might suddenly decide it doesn\u2019t want to be ridden at all. A rider might take a diving dismount, plowing into the dirt face-first, or miss a remount and go sprawling to the ground \u2014 an instant disqualification.<\/p>\n<p>Josiah Bad Bear, who was the rider at the practice in August, was filling in for the regular rider, Darren Charges Strong, who couldn\u2019t make it that night. Bad Bear, 20, who is also a flat-track jockey, has been racing horses since he was 13. The big difference between jockeying and riding in a relay, he said, is the jump-on mounting and the leaping off on the fly. There\u2019s no way to prepare for a relay but by practicing constantly, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKeep practicing with them,\u201d he said, referring to the horses. \u201cTalk with them. Stand with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brown said he and Birdinground, who\u2019ve been friends since they were kids, both started out by helping a cousin of Brown\u2019s, who trained flat-track racehorses. Then, as relay racing started taking off, they moved into that, too, working with a team of relay racers for a few years before deciding, a couple of years ago, to break off and form their own team.<\/p>\n<p>Brown said it was Birdinground\u2019s idea. \u201cHe said, \u2018I think we can be good. We know how to handle horses.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t easy, but we got it going and we\u2019ve done pretty good so far.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They bought a couple of horses to start off, and then the grandfather of another team member, Laramie Little Light, gave them a third horse.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople around here are nice,\u201d Brown said. \u201cYou have other family members that have horses. They ask you, \u2018Do you need a horse? I\u2019ll buy you one.\u2019 You always have a horse around here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The team also owes a lot to Lloyd Pickett, a grandfather of Velma, Brown\u2019s wife. He was big in rodeo, winning the national high school bull-riding championship in 1958, but he has become a solid supporter of the River Road team, letting them use his heavy-duty pickup for hauling horses to races.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s like our main sponsor,\u201d Velma said. \u201cWithout him we wouldn\u2019t be able to make it anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19446\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-19446 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Relay-remount-1-771x497.jpg\" alt=\"Dust\" width=\"771\" height=\"497\" srcset=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Relay-remount-1.jpg 771w, https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Relay-remount-1-336x217.jpg 336w, https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Relay-remount-1-768x495.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">John Warner<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">In a scene from the 2016 All Nations Indian Relay Championships, a rider attempting to mount his horse bites the dust instead.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Family is important to everyone on the team, Brown said. Everyone likes to make money \u2014 the championships in Billings will offer $50,000 in prize money \u2014 but that is not the main motivator, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re doing it for the money, it\u2019s different, you know?\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t do it for the money. You aren\u2019t going to become a millionaire. You have to do it for the love of the sport, for the love of the horses, for what it does for you, what it does for your family, what it does for your people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Velma seconded that notion. \u201cIt really keeps the menfolk in our community busy,\u201d she said. \u201cThis sport lifts up our men. And the horse is really connected to our history. I think it\u2019s what our men need. I\u2019d rather have them addicted to horses than anything else. It\u2019s pretty good medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That passion for horses is being passed down to the next generation. Brown said that between him and three other members of River Road, they have nine children, all of them boys. All of them compete in the kids relay races held during the relay finals, with the boys mounted on Shetland ponies and miniature horses.<\/p>\n<p>The boys are always coming to practice, \u201cand they each come with a friend,\u201d Brown said. They can\u2019t wait for practice to end, when they are allowed to mount the big horses for their cooling-off walks around the track. Birdinground\u2019s wife, Anna, said her three boys are as crazy about horses as their father is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy boys are outside all day,\u201d she said. \u201cI can\u2019t keep them in,\u201d not even when she buys them electronic devices: \u201cHorses win all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brown said the River Road team is successful \u2014 it took first place at a sanctioned relay race in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, in July \u2014 because everyone gives it their all. If he can\u2019t make a practice, Brown said, Birdinground almost surely will, and if they\u2019re both busy they\u2019ll just call the other team members and let them know which horse needs to be walked, which needs to be galloped, or anything else that needs doing.<\/p>\n<p>Ghost Bear, director of the relay council, said he\u2019s had many opportunities to watch Brown, and he likes what he\u2019s seen. \u201cCody Brown\u2019s a very respectable, honorable young man,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s really got a lot of insight into what he\u2019s doing and how he\u2019s preparing his team. I\u2019ve been appreciative of how he treats his team and how he treats his horses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brown, for his part, said he learned how to race and how to be part of a team by watching other relay racers from around the country.<\/p>\n<p>If teams do well, he said, \u201cit\u2019s because they were there all the time. They put in the hard work. That\u2019s why they got to enjoy the victories they had. That\u2019s why we\u2019re trying hard. We want to be just like them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CROW AGENCY \u2014 When the River Road Relay team gets together for a practice, it\u2019s all about the horses. The human beings involved in an Indian horse relay race certainly get a workout, and occasionally a few scrape and bruises, but at practice the horses are the focus of their intense and loving attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,1],"tags":[6270,6269,183,6272,6271],"class_list":["post-19381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversions","category-montana","category-uncategorized","tag-cody-brown","tag-horse-nations-relay-council","tag-metrapark","tag-river-road-relay","tag-timothy-birdinground","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19447,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19381\/revisions\/19447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}