Roots of Rodeo at the Amon Carter

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/06/21/where-the-west-never-ends/

Two Fort Worth neighbors have their roots in the same place: The Old West.

I’m talking about the Amon Carter Museum and the rodeo that resides across the street from it. The museum began with its namesake’s collection of works depicting the American frontier by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. These artists attempted to show the robust lifestyle of those who made their homes in that legendary expanse.

Though the Carter has expanded its collection of American art well beyond the cowboy genre, western heritage still forms an important part of its identity. The facility dedicates an entire section to the works of Remington and Russell.

As I wrote in the Stuff section of the Weekly this week, the museum also owns a number of works with a sports theme. One intriguing example comes via a letter Russell wrote to a man he calls “Friend Guy.” The artist would often illustrate his correspondence and visitors can view several of the originals preserved in drawers. On January 28, 1916, he wrote to Guy Weadick about “bronk riders” and “bull dogers (aka steer wrestlers)” He notes that Weadick’s audience members “have all seen wild west shows but yours is no show it’s a contest where horses and riders are strangers.” The event Weadick founded would eventually become one of the world’s premier rodeos: The Calgary Stampede. Russell had knowledge of its first incarnations in Calgary and Winnipeg.

photo courtesy Amon Carter Museum

The following year, Fort Worth would make one of its major contributions to the sport by staging the first indoor rodeo. The Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo pioneered other innovations as well, including side-release bucking chutes, and lays claim to having hosted the first modern bull riding event in 1920.

Competitions in which cowboys tested their riding and roping skills had sprung up in the latter part of the 19th century, around the time when Russell and Remington were creating the images of the West for which they became known. Some of the creations portrayed cowboys working at the tasks that eventually would be incorporated into the sport of rodeo.

The most prominent such work is a sculpture by Remington called The Broncho Buster. The Carter owns three versions of it, with the largest placed prominently in a first-floor gallery. It shows a cowboy in the act of conditioning a recalcitrant mount to accept the idea of having a rider on its back.
That endeavor translates pretty straightforwardly into the bronc riding competitions one might see in the Will Rogers Memorial Center arena. Other events, like bull riding, were created especially for the rodeo arena. Each year, the Stock Show supplements its regular PRCA shows with a Best of the West Ranch Rodeo featuring events designed to reflect the daily duties of a working ranchhand. The Stock Show, and indeed Cowtown in general, is never shy about celebrating western heritage.

When we visit the rodeo or the art museum, we do so in part to observe and enjoy talent – the artist’s beautiful brushstrokes or the surpassing athletic abilities of human and animal competitors. We also expand our knowledge of the culture that permeates each. In Fort Worth, we are fortunate to have more than one way to appreciate, and learn about, the vigor, toughness, and character of those who call themselves cowboys and cowgirls. And the two venues are right across the street from each other.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.
 
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A Texas-Sized Niche

This post originally appeared at the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To view it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/04/11/sports-rush-a-texas-sized-niche/

Fort Worth has a sports niche. It’s a legendary, bighoss-sized one.

We saw it on display this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, home to the gargantuan video screen known as Big Hoss TV. TMS hosted automobile races in NASCAR’s two top classifications. The world’s best stock car drivers and crews all assembled in north Fort Worth to compete on a beautiful Texas spring day.

They’ll return in November for another set of races. In between, the Verizon IndyCar Series and the Camping World Truck Series will visit June 9 and 10 (the trucks will also run again in November). For fans, these weekends represent a major event, with the campers and RVs parked across the speedway’s infield and external lots representing a testament to the amount of time and resources they devote to attending. I saw a man wearing a shirt that read Saskatchewan Roughriders (a Canadian football team) on its front. We can’t know if he truly visited from Regina specifically to watch (mostly) American race car drivers, but many attendees no doubt come from outside the area (including UK rocker Ozzie Osbourne and his son Jack, who instructed the drivers to start their engines Sunday).

The races also bring in national broadcasters, with Sunday’s contest carried on the Fox Network. Events that feature all the best competitors in a given sport draw audiences from beyond the areas where they happen, kind of like all-star games. For some sports, mostly individual ones, they play on a neutral site every week (notwithstanding TMS’s positioning itself as “Your Home Track”). One can make a case that these sorts of events have become Cowtown’s forte.

 

While it doesn’t attract the big four broadcast networks any more, the rodeo held every winter in conjunction with the Fort Worth Stock Show features world-class PRCA cowboys and WPRA cowgirls. For someone in the region who wants to see the top steer wrestlers or barrel racers, the FWSSR offers the best way to do it.

May’s DEAN & DELUCA Invitational annually supplies North Texas (and a nationwide TV audience) the world’s top male golfers. At one time, Colonial Country Club also hosted a top-flight men’s tennis tournament.

Fort Worth has put on a few one-off big events, too, like the NCAA Gymnastics Championship and even tennis’ Davis Cup final in 1992. What it hasn’t staged a lot of lately is professional team sports.

 

LaGrave Field has descended into disrepair and it looks like it will be a while before the city sees Fort Worth Cats baseball again. The minor league hockey teams that tried to make the Fort Worth Convention Center home are gone, too. The Arena Football League lasted only the 1994 season before that franchise disappeared. The golf tournament, on the other hand, has survived more than 70 years. Texas Motor Speedway has made it 20+. The rodeo, as they say, is legendary.

Team sports aren’t totally dead in Cowtown. TCU draws sustainable crowds for a few of its programs. The Frogs’ biggest draw, though, is its football program, a sport that plays only half a dozen home games yearly with many of those coming against opponents with regional appeal.

 

Municipalities love to bring in visitors to buy hotel nights and purchase meals and tip local musicians. Only sports teams playing at the highest levels attract visitors and national media outlets to their cities, and even then only in limited quantities. Since existing arena deals, sales tax caps, and perhaps basic economics indicate Fort Worth won’t induce the local big league franchises to relocate from Dallas, Arlington, or Frisco any time soon, Fort Worth will likely have to stick to its sports niche.

That niche is the single big event. Given the quality of the racing Sunday (Jimmie Johnson steered his way to a win that featured drama and strategy all the way to the end) and the tens of thousands of people who watched it, that niche can be both exciting and substantial. Legendary, even.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.




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5 Top Equestrian Events in Fort Worth This Summer

This post originally appeared on the website of the Fort Worth CVB. To read it there : http://www.fortworth.com/blog/post/2016/12/5-Top-Equestrian-Events-This-Summer-at-Will-Rogers/1267/

 

 

If you’ve ever heard of Fort Worth, Texas, you’re aware of our cowboy culture and the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. You might even know they’ve held the Stock Show at the Will Rogers Memorial Center every year since 1944. But you may not realize the complex hosts events year-round. 

As you finalize your summer plans, you might want to include a trip to see some skilled equestrians and outstanding equine athletes. We checked in with David Reeves, Director of Sales for the Will Rogers Memorial Center, to help us put together a list of five attractive dates to add to your vacation calendar.

1. Ranch Sorting National Championships World Finals & All Around Ranch Rodeo Challenge
Mid-June brings a couple of events that showcase skills used by real-life ranch hands.
You’ll see remarkable horsemanship and teamwork at the Ranch Sorting National Championships World Finals June 13-18. Teams of riders sort cattle into their assigned pens with amazing precision.
They bill the All-Around Ranch Rodeo Challenge, held June 16-18, as the World's Richest Ranch Rodeo. It’s a chance for you to see teams from working ranches compete in tasks similar to those they use in their jobs as actual working cowboys and cowgirls. You can see them work with livestock at a frenetic pace in events like Wild Cow Milking, Branding, and Bronc Riding.

2. Appaloosa National Show and Youth World Championship: June 27 - July 9 
This event will showcase a beautiful and versatile breed. The Appaloosa Horse Club will award some 130 National Championship titles and another 70 youth titles. You’ll have a lot of events to choose from - whether you value subtlety or speed, you can find it at this show.
David adds: “You’ll see some inspiring competitors at the Stars & Stripes Summer Spectacular on June 28 for equestrians with disabilities.”

3. American Paint Horse Association Youth World Championship: June 28 – July 9
In addition to naming youth world champions in each event, over $300,000 in scholarships and prizes will be awarded at the World Championships to young people who show and ride the American Paint Horses they love. David also recommends the ASHA Cowtown Ranch Classic on July 7 and the ACHA Cowtown Cutting on July 8-9, which are new additions this year.
You might have noticed that both the American Paint Horse and Appaloosa shows happen at the same time. Fort Worth is lucky enough to have a facility capable of accommodating more than one big show at once. Participants from both groups will appear in the Stars & Stripes Summer Spectacular, Youth Team Tournament, Youth Judging Contest, and the Cowtown Ranch Classic and Cowtown Cutting.

4. National Cutting Horse Association Summer Cutting Spectacular: July 16 - August 6 

The final jewel of the NCHA's Triple Crown, this event will attract some of the top competitors in the sport. Amateur cutters of all ages get a chance to compete in their own contests, too.

David adds: "The Spectacular also includes the NCHA/Western Bloodstock Showdown and the NYCHA Youth World Finals."

 

5. Southwest Reined Cow Horse Rode to Reno: August 18-21
The SRCHA promotes training all breeds of horses in traditional ways. There’s a lot to see, including two NRCHA/ AQHA approved cow horse shows, a derby and futurity, and two AQHA ranch riding and reining competitions. The cowboys and cowgirls are trying to make it to the National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity in Reno this September. And yep, they spell it “Rode.”

David adds: "You will not want to miss the cow work portion of the cow horse show. This is the most exciting element of the show and the basis for the nickname, ‘The Greatest Show on Dirt'."

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.


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