(Submitted photo/Covy Moore)

By Angie Rolheiser

Showdown Sunday

Hudson Bay barrel racer moving onto finals at Calgary Stampede

Jul 14, 2021 | 3:36 PM

A barrel racer from Hudson Bay is seeing success at her first appearance at the Calgary Stampede rodeo.

Bertina Olafson and her horse Duke are now second overall in the ladies barrel racing event. The pair have accumulated over $12,000 in earnings through four days of competition.

Olafson told northeastNOW they have a couple of days off before moving onto Showdown Sunday which means some rest for Duke.

“In Canada, we haven’t had any rodeos for a year and a half, so he has been sitting on the sidelines,” Olafson said. “Coming into this race we have been training for it but mentally we couldn’t prepare for something as big as the Calgary Stampede, so I am letting him rest.”

The goal over the next couple of days is to keep him relaxed, happy, and healthy until race time on Sunday. The top prize for the final at Showdown Sunday is $50,000.

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Duke placed third on the first and second day, tied for fifth on the third day and placed second on the fourth day with a time of 17.42 seconds. Wenda Johnson of Pawhuska, OK sits in first place after a run time of 17.28 seconds.

Olafson owns many horses, however, Duke is the only one that runs in professional rodeos, or pro-rodeo.

“It was when he was a six-year-old that I decided to try my hand at rodeo and he took to it and loved it,” Olafson said. “We started with amateur rodeo, semi-pro and each level that we conquered, we just kept going higher.”

When Olafson first started working with Duke, who is now 13 years old, the goal was just to attend local races and have fun.

“He had different plans,” she said. “He has taken me a lot of places.”

The pair entered pro-rodeo in 2018 and haven’t looked back since.

“Calgary Stampede is extremely hard to get into especially in a regular year but with COVID and it being harder for the U.S. residents to come across, you will see more Canadians in the Stampede,” Olafson said. “Not many people know that the Calgary Stampede is a U.S. ran rodeo, so as a Canadian getting an invite, it has been really tough to get to that goal.”

Training for the pair this year only began in June when the invite to the Stampede arrived.

“It was a lot of quick conditioning and then getting him out to some events to mentally prepare him,” Olafson said. “We only had three runs prior to Calgary this year, where on a normal year you would already be in full swing in the season.”

Olafson said she plans to continue with pro-rodeo this year and will be competing in events in Alberta, B.C., and Saskatchewan and she is hoping to get to the Canadian finals again this year.

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angie.rolheiser@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @Angie_Rolheiser