Lethbridge is off to the races once again

Lethbridge is off to the races again.

The 2024 season kicks off this Saturday with the Kentucky Derby at the Rocky Mountain Turf Club. Another special event will take place on Mother’s Day followed by a Doggy Derby the next weekend.

Lethbridge’s horse racing season runs May and June, September and October. There will also be a big event Canada Day with the Warrior Relay races, one of the most popular events to watch. This is when a team of three horses and four to eight riders race bareback at full gallop around the track leaping from one horse to the next in traditional indigenous regalia.

Calvin Plain Eagle talks about how important it is to display the traditional garb during these races as well as decorating their horses. 

“We paint our horses, like we have a traditional paint on our horses,” he says. “I kind of went back to our tradition from what the paint means to us, you know, in some of the paints it means like the warrior racing like the warrior when you’re battling, how much paint they have on their horses and how much battles they’ve been at,” says Plain Eagle. 

Warrior relay racing is one of the oldest competitive sports in North America dating back more than 500 years.  

The RMTC schedule is as follows:
MAY 4 – Kentucky Derby

MAY 12 – Mother’s Day Event (all day special)

May 18 – Preakness

MAY 18, 19 – Doggy Derby

JUNE 8 – Belmont

JUNE 8 – Fillies & Mares Spring Sprint

JUNE 9 – Spring Overnite Sprint

JUNE 16 – Father’s Day

JUNE 22  – Fillies & Mares Sprint Sprint

JUNE 23 – Three-year-old Spring Stake

JULY 1 – Canada Day / Warrior Relay Race (see RMTC website for added dates of relay races)

SEPT. 1 – Alberta Bred

SEPT. 29 – Spring Marathon Sept “B” Cup

SEPT. 30 – Truth & Reconciliation Day

OCT. 14 – Bully’s Futurity

OCT. 14 – Thanksgiving

For more information and livestream visit:

rockymountainturfclub.com
bullys.ca