The long reign of Reiner is over at the Calgary Stampede.
However, Gladys Ridge barrel racer Deb Renger is hoping to start a long run at the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth with her new horse Shorty.
Renger received an invitation to compete at the 2011 Calgary Stampede when another racer had to pull out late last week, but she won’t have her best friend with her.
Her long-time horse, the 15-year-old Reiner, is retired and living comfortably at Renger’s home in the Gladys Ridge area.
“I had him ready to go to Billings last year and he came up lame, so I haven’t run him since last August,” Renger said on July 7. “He is at home and turned out. He just had some ‘soundness issues’. He could still run if I wanted to run him, but I don’t think he owes me anything.”
They had a successful time together in rodeo.
Reiner and Renger won the Calgary Stampede in 2004. They also won the Canadian Finals Rodeo in 2007. Reiner was named Canada’s Horse With the Most Heart in 2009.
What Renger misses most isn’t going around the barrels hell-bent for leather with Reiner, but just having him on the road.
“He is my best friend,” Renger said, who estimates she has competed at the Stampede every year since 1995. “The hardest thing is going down the road and leaving him behind. He’s happy staying home and eating grass and stuff, but I think he really misses going.
“He’s always been the main horse and all of a sudden he’s not going anywhere.”
Renger purchased Reiner after he had a successful career as a working cow-horse with Vance Kaglea of the High River area.
Renger started her first Calgary Stampede with Shorty, an 11-year-old gelding, on Friday.
“I just bought him a week before Christmas,” Renger said. “He was a breakaway rope horse in Oregon for most of his life. In 2009, the lady who owned him took him to a few amateur rodeos.
“A friend told me about him, and I went down and tried him and bought him.” Shorty had speed, but he hadn’t had the training of a Calgary Stampede horse.
“He didn’t have any basics on barrels,” Renger said. “I brought him home, did some work on him and then I took him to Denver. He ran pretty well.”
She is confident Shorty can handle the pressure of the Calgary Stampede in front of thousands of yahooing fans.
“I won my bunch (series) in Houston on him and you don’t get any bigger than Houston,” she said. “They have 60,000 people there… Crowds don’t bother him.”
Renger and Shorty are in Pool A of the Calgary Stampede and will compete from July 8-11 at 1:30 p.m. Renger will then compete on either the Wild Card Saturday on July 16 and/or the Showdown Sunday final on July 17.
To view the results go to www.calgarystampede.com. Results of local riders will be on the Western Wheel facebook page and the web site at www.westernwheel.com
