Crowds at the Chestermere Country Fair came to cheer on bull riders for the BRC Bull Riding, and Charity Bull Riding Competition for the second year on Sept. 10.
“People love the bull riding, the thrills, and the spills, it’s all there, they just love it. It was awesome, the bulls were good, the bull riders were even better, and people enjoyed it,” Dan Richard said.
Richard was inspired to bring bull riding events to the Chestermere Country Fair to showcase the community’s western heritage.
“We have a long history with rodeo, bringing the western heritage to Chestermere, there is a lot of top-notch cowboys and cowgirls coming from Chestermere, and it felt like a good fit,” Richard said. “It’s what small communities in Alberta do, we were missing out, but here we are, we’re not missing out anymore.”
Richard was first inspired to organize a high school rodeo and was looking for an agriculture society to support the initiative.
“Chestermere decided they were going to put their money behind me, and we did two high school rodeos in Calgary. It grew from there. We got some bucking chutes, we decided we wanted to have bull riding here, and here we are, we’re the second year into it, and it’s been super popular, it’s awesome,” Richard said.
In addition to the BRC Bull Riding, the country fair also featured a Charity Bull Riding Competition, where local individuals got on a bull after fundraising for a charity organization.
This year the charities included Cystic Fibrosis Canada, Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation, STARS Air Ambulance, The Canadian Legacy Project, and The Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation.
“We love the charity bull riding, we have the proper bulls for the guys to get on, it’s good,” Richard said.
