Soaking it all in: A behind-the-scenes look at Rangeland Derby horse care, driver rituals

Just like other high-level athletes, horses need time to rest and recuperate.

Maybe even a spa day.

Veteran chuckwagon driver Ray Croteau Jr. has taken full advantage of a new service being provided near the Calgary Stampede barns.

“There’s a spa at the end of the barn that I’ve been utilizing,” said Croteau on Tuesday during a barn tour for media members to learn about the daily activities of drivers and how they care for their horses. “It’s an ice-bath spa — a couple horses just need a little extra maintenance like football players, hockey players icing their legs, things like that.”

Billed as ‘elite equine therapy for the elite equine athlete,’ Soak Equine is a mobile salt water spa trailer where horses can, literally, get into a stand-up tub big enough to provide a cooling bath for their legs.

On Wednesday, Croteau brought Appreciated to the spa for a treatment overseen by Soak Equine’s Kate Rusnack that his aptly named horse most definitely appreciated on a hot day.

“We’re pretty fortunate to have somebody like that with a business that wants to come down and help us, work with us,” said Croteau, who appreciates the service that Rusnack is providing for the first time at the Stampede. “It’s pretty unique that way. She travels a lot and goes to a lot of barrel racing and cutting (events), so she knows what she’s doing. She’s really good with the horses and how to get them into the trailer and in the tub.”

During the barn tour, Croteau also talked about other measures drivers take to keep their horses healthy and happy, especially during Calgary’s recent heat wave where temperatures have reached in excess of 32 C.

“With the high temperatures, obviously we’ve got these fans and the misters going just to try to keep things cool,” said Croteau, talking in his barn amid the whirring of a high-powered fan in the background. “Outside of the normal, just making sure they’re eating and making sure we’ve got good vets around in case something goes wrong. It’s just keeping them comfortable in the heat.

“Since we’ve been here, horses love grass, so after we’ve done chores in the morning, we send some guys down by the river to cut some of the longer grass and they each kind of get a bundle of grass for themselves. They see when we walk in the barn with that grass, they’re ready to go. They want some.”

Like Croteau, Cowboys Rangeland Derby aggregate leader Chad Fike keeps his barn cool for the horses with fans and misters aplenty.

“If you step your head in there, it’s beautiful,” said Fike, who’s currently second in the aggregate standings through six nights of racing with a cumulative time of 7:11.58, which is just 16/100ths of a second behind leader Chanse Vigen. “So yeah, it’s keeping them comfortable.”

Also on the media tour, veteran reinsman Troy Dorchester detailed what a day in the life of a chuckwagon driver is like … and it involves getting up really early in the morning.

“I feed (the horses) at usually 5:30 or 5:45 in the morning,” said Dorchester, who added that his barn crew shows up just before 6 a.m. and they start walking all the horses. “Some get baths. Quite a few, we mud their legs, kind of a cooling mud at night … then they go get washed off and then they get about a 15-minute walk each.”

It’s only after the crew cleans all 18 horse stalls, puts down fresh bedding, fills all the water pails and provides fresh feed, that Dorchester fires up the grill and cooks breakfast.

When asked what his specialty is, Dorchester replied, “whatever they throw on the table — bacon and eggs and hash browns or pancakes, sometimes just mix it up. It’s fun and it keeps the crew fed, because they work hard early mornings.”

Those early morning details only encompass a small part of what Dorchester has to take care of each day. He also has several other duties to oversee such as getting his wagon set up for the evening races and preparing the harnesses for the horses.

“You start getting to the afternoon and you do the same thing you did in the morning,” said the 51-year-old reinsman. “It’s like Groundhog Day. You clean the stalls again, give them a walk. The ones that are running only go to the wash rack and back because they’re going to run that night. So, when they’re gone, we clean the stalls, give fresh bedding, get everything ready and away you go.”

Following the pre-race barn tours for sponsors and their visitors, Dorchester takes a bit of a time to visualize his upcoming race.

“I kind of like my own time for an hour before,” he said. “I set (the) harnesses out and I just sit in the barn and envision my race 30 to 40 times … and different scenarios.”

Other stops on the media tour included a visit with demonstration driver Ryan Baptiste and a stop at the barn of Stampede rookie driver Dayton Sutherland, whose grandpa Kelly won the Rangeland Derby a record 12 times.

One of two Chuckwagon 101 drivers at this year’s Rangeland Derby — the other is Layne Flad — Baptiste runs a race around the track with two outriders prior to the first heat, while track announcer Les McIntyre describes the action to the fans.

“Everybody that is new to wagon racing — maybe some that aren’t new to wagon racing — (it’s) just a refresher on what goes on, on a nightly basis through each heat,” said Baptiste, who hopes to get invited to compete at the Calgary Stampede next year. “And when the horn goes, we go around the barrels, go around the track, try to be safe. You know, safety is a big deal.”

In addition to detailing how he cares for his horses, Sutherland talked how he and other drivers, such as Dorchester and Jason Glass, were born into the sport of chuckwagon racing.

“That’s the hard part about our sport is the barrier to entry is so high,” said Sutherland, whose dad Mark retired from racing after last year’s Stampede. “Not only do you need a lot of knowledge and a lot of finances — and then you need you need training facilities, you need a farm, you need all these sorts of things.

“I was super lucky, obviously, to be born into it. It’s hard to do it any other way and that’s why you get this generational thing. You see the theme with us, you see the theme with the Glasses, the Dorchesters. That’s just how it starts.”

AROUND THE BARRELS

Chanse Vigen, AKA ‘The Rangeland Derby Rockstar’, drove the KMA Construction & KMA Scaffolding Services outfit and stopped the clock in a penalty-free 1:10.03 to take Wednesday’s top time.

And it was also the fastest of the the race meet so far.

From barrel No. 1 in the eighth heat, Vigen was the top wagon on the night by 0.43 seconds over 2013 Rangeland Derby champion Jason Glass, who had to settle for second on the night. Jamie Laboucane placed third, Obrey Motowylo was fourth, and Cody Ridsdale roundeoud t the top five on the night.

It’s the second time this week that Vigen has posted the night’s top time.

The day-money run vaulted Vigen to the top of the overall aggregate standings with a six-run total of 7:11.42. That puts him just 0.16s ahead of former leader Fike, with Jamie Laboucane moving up into to third place overall. Glass now occupies the crying hole, sitting fourth overall but just 0.32s out of third. Defending champion Layne MacGillivray is now in fifth spot overall.

The top threee in the overall aggregate standings after Saturday’s racing go to the championship final heat. The winner of the championship final heat is then declared the 2024 Calgary Stampede Rangeland Derby champion.