Off to the races: Mînî Thnî Indian relay team finishes Stampede run, returns to the road

Watson Kaquitts watches his Indian relay team, Mînî Thnî Blue Feather, practice at the Goodstoney Racetrack on Îyârhe Nakoda First Nation on Thursday (July 16). (Leah Pelletier/Rocky Mountain Outlook)

Steadying his cowboy hat in the wind, Watson Kaquitts watches his horses kick up dust from the hill above Goodstoney Racetrack.

The track is quiet without a cheering crowd, but even at a practice, the view never gets old for the Stoney Nakoda elder and owner of one of the nation’s only Indian relay teams, Mînî Thnî Blue Feather.

“I like watching my horses run,” he says from the windy lookout above the team’s training grounds just west of Mînî Thnî.

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Hot on the heels of a good run at the Calgary Stampede, after punching their ticket to the event at the inaugural First Nations Rodeo in June, the team is just getting started and the season is packed with races across Alberta and the west.

“We raced against the top Canadian and U.S. teams, but we kept up with them. Our horses ran good,” said Kaquitts, noting this year, Indian relay at the Stampede was broadcast on national TV for the first time.

“We represent our people from Mînî Thnî, the three bands here, and they feel proud that one of their Îyethka team is running there and that makes me feel really good,” added Kaquitts, who is also a councillor with Goodstoney First Nation, one of three bands along with Chiniki and Bearspaw that make up Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation.

“That’s a breakthrough for us.”

One of the few relay teams hailing from Stoney Nakoda First Nation, Mînî Thnî Blue Feather has been on the relay trail competing in the fast-paced sport that sees riders race bareback and jump from one speeding horse to another since Kaquitts formed the team back in 2017.

Rodeo behind, relay ahead

If there’s one thing Kaquitts knew as a kid it was that he wanted to be a cowboy.

“Rodeo was always part of our lives and as a kid growing up my cousins were bronc riders,” said Kaquitts, who grew up in Rabbit Lake, northwest of Mînî Thnî.

“It’s just in our system that we want to be rodeo cowboys.”

Trying out bareback riding and bull riding, Kaquitts eventually sank his teeth into bulldogging, going on to travel the rodeo trail all the way to the big leagues at the Indian Nationals Final Rodeo where he competed against North America’s top riders twice in his career.

Eventually his rough and tumble rodeo days caught up to him and he said goodbye to bulldoggin’ in 2017.

But it wasn’t long after that Kaquitts found himself with a front row seat to the high adrenaline, gutsy sport of Indian relay.

“After I quit rodeo, I didn’t leave the horse behind,” he said, recalling a rodeo in Lethbridge where he met the late Thomas Many Guns from Siksika Nation who would help him get his start in relay.

“I told him my body’s not really healthy to keep rodeoing, so I wanna turn to something that I’m gonna like, which is relay racing.”

Losing some horses to a barn fire, Many Guns didn’t have the heart to keep up his own relay team and offered up some of his horses to Kaquitts.

“He said, ‘catch as many as you want and take them.’ But I only caught three because they were out in the open.”

Recruiting a few riders, Kaquitts had a team on his hands and the next year they were off to the races starting with a debut in Strathmore.

“From there, I started buying horses and today I have about 12 of them,” he said, honouring Many Guns for helping him get his start.

But unlike the quarter-horses of rodeo, it’s thoroughbreds that are the stars of relay, Kaquitts says, noting he had to learn how to take care of them.

“I started learning from other people. I always ask people, I still do, what do I do with the horses? But we’re learning and the boys are catching on really fast.”

Now, Mînî Thnî Blue Feather consists of about 16 team members across all four relay positions from rider to catcher, setter and back holder, Kaquitts says, noting that sometimes teams help each other out by letting their riders race for another team.

While teaching the guys how to race, Kaquitts also shows them how to care for a horse.

“When you’re mean to [a horse] or hit him, he’s just like an elephant. He’s not gonna forget. He’s always gonna remember that,” he said.

“Those are the things that our elders taught us how to respect the horses and if you’re good to a horse, they’ll be good to you.”

‘The whole team plays a role’

On the track, every second counts for a relay team.

The extreme sport, that’s spiked in popularity over the last few years, is as much about the horses as it is the rider and ground team.

“Not only the jockey plays a role. The whole team plays a role,” said Garis Twoyoungmen, one of the captains on the team, who has been with the blue feathers for six years.

Each team has a catcher, setter and back holder who keep the horse in place as the jockey jumps from one horse to another after each lap.

“If you miss it, well, the horse that is ready … he’s gonna take off and that’s gonna create chaos and screw everything up. That’s why … it’s really critical that he catch it,” Kaquitts said of the catcher’s role.

But even if everyone does their job right, collisions are often par for the course in the rush of a hurried turnover in between laps.

“People get hit. People get run over,” says Kaquitts. “It’s really dangerous when the guys get off the horse while it’s coming full speed.”

Twoyoungmen says it’s important relay horses are still in the box, not rearing up or kicking when the rider tries to jump on.

“That’s one of my main roles, too,” said Twoyoungmen. “I’m always excited and happy that [Kaquitts] brings me horses because he’s always telling me, ‘Oh, you’ll fix him.’”

Twoyoungmen says relay is about horsemanship and sometimes it just takes a little work to get a horse fit to race.

“Horses are kind of like medicine. They soothe my soul and then every time when I’m around horses, all the worries, all the negative, all the bad stuff just goes away,” said Twoyoungmen.

“ I’d rather be around more horses than humans. That’s the reason why I keep coming back to [relay].”

‘Racing is just in our blood’

Before the first track was ever carved into the hillside, generations of Îyârhe Nakoda people were racing horses along the grassy plains around the Bow River.

“My grandfather used to tell me stories about way back … they used to race along the river there but that was a flat race. It wasn’t round like this,” said Kaquitts, pointing beyond the racetrack toward the Stoney Nakoda Resort and Casino.

“Our people were always into racing horses, so I think it’s just natural,” he said, adding that relay races were long a part of Banff Indian Days. “Racing is just in our blood but our young guys are not really into it.”

With the sport reaching new audiences, Kaquitts says he hopes to rope in the younger generation, welcoming anyone who wants to learn how to ride.

“I’d like to see more participation from here,” he said. “I know in every nation there’s good riders. There’s natural riders.”

“There’s no jockeys out in Morley, so I’m trying to make a jockey as well,” added Twoyoungmen.

“Horses are healing animals, and hopefully everybody gets to experience that.”

After learning some lessons at the Stampede and improving with each race, Kaquitts and Twoyoungmen know they’ve got the horsepower to take the team anywhere on the road, and their sights are set on entering more races south of the border.

“We wanna go to the U.S. finals,” Kaquitts said of the Indian Relay Championship of Champions taking place in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in September.

“There’s only one rule out there: don’t lose a horse. That’s about it. Out here in Canada there’s way too many rules, I think,” added Twoyoungmen.

But before the boys take on the big leagues, they return home for the fourth annual Mînî Thnî Indian Horse Relay and Chuckwagon Races from July 31 to Aug. 2.

Chuckwagon races start on July 31 at 6 p.m. and Indian relay starts on Aug. 1 at 6 p.m. at the Goodstoney Racetrack off of Highway 1A west of Chief Goodstoney Rodeo Centre.

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. This position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.