Postcard from the Past: And They’re Off

Hitch a team of high-strung race horses to a couple of over-sized ice skates welded to half of a 55-gallon drum, find a “crazy” teamster/driver who would challenge the neighbors and you have an old fashioned “cutter race.”

For more than 150 years, Wyoming cowboys with a couple of fast horses have been staging cutter and chariot races wherever a flat spot and snow could be found.

During the mid-1920s, organized cutter races began to spring up across the Rocky Mountain Region, including Star Valley, Jackson, Evanston, Laramie, Casper, Rawlins, Baggs/Little Snake River Valley and Saratoga/Encampment Valley in Wyoming and Steamboat Springs, Craig, Walden and the Front Range of Colorado.

When snow wasn’t available, bicycle wheels were placed on sleds and the chariot – similar to those used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome for warfare, racing and hunting – was born again.

The chariot is described as a light, two-wheeled vehicle for one person, hitched to a team and driven from a standing position.

Evolving greatly over history of the sport, the wooden chariots of ancient wars and gas barrels of ranch racing have been replaced by lightweight, aluminum/fiberglass models with rubber wheels.

Veteran Chariot Racer Ron Garretson of the Saratoga area noted both homemade and commercial chariots are made out of aluminum on the hitch with fiberglass on the “can” or body of the contraption. Wheels are similar to bicycle tires, only heavier.

According to Garretson, the chariots are a standard size and weigh right at 58 pounds. The body, where the driver stands during a race, is u-shaped with an open back and no seat. Since there aren’t seats or safety belts in the chariots, Garretson said, the driver grabs the “sissy bar” for the fast start and balances on the lines – reins – during the race.

For many years chariot/cutter races were held throughout the Rockies during the winter including in Saratoga, usually in February. It was billed as the “most exciting quarter-mile in Wyoming.” 

The three-day event featured calcuttas, on-track betting, dinners, entertainment, racing and wrecks and was jointly sponsored by the Saratoga Lions Club and Saratoga and Platte Valley Chamber of Commerce.

The few chariot races remaining today in Wyoming are a far cry from the contests held years ago on a hay meadow or flat country road.

A few years back the cutter/chariot races in Saratoga were discontinued and replaced with skijoring which is being held this year during the weekend of Feb. 1-2 at the Buck Springs Race Track east of town. There are typically around 90 races per day with prize money totaling about $10,000.

For those not familiar with the sport of skijoring, it is an action-packed event combining ski and horse racing. Skiers are towed behind a horse and rider down a 700-feet track. The skier must navigate ski gates, jumps and collect rings in this timed event. Horses can reach upwards of 40 miles per hour (mph), while skiers push 50 mph during their runs. But, then, that’s a story for the next horse race.