"Hey, do you wanna go see people going over ski jumps as they're being pulled by horses?" Kirstyn Wallace asked Brock Perri the other day.
"And when you ask other people that question you might get a 'meh' but when she asked me I was like 'well yeah, of course I wanna go see people being dragged around a track behind a horse'."
So that's how Wallace and Perri ended up being among about 100 spectators watching a unique event held on a snowy Sunday in Prince George.
During Skijoring PG 2020 teams of three including horse, rider and a person on skis or a snowboard towed behind them, signed up for 68 runs at the rodeo grounds beside CN Centre.
First up was the big track event that saw horse and rider take the towed participant over three jumps in a timed event.
Next up was the sprints where it was just a straight track and fastest time won and then the finale was the long jump where the towed person released the rope once they hit the ramp and flew through the air to see who could go the farthest.
There are time penalties if a jump is missed or the pylon placed on a hay bale is not knocked down, just to add to the challenge. There will be marshals in the field to determine everyone follows the rules and like all officials, what they say goes.
Organizer Sheri Graham said she was really happy to be riding the horse during the competition as she dragged her 'voluntold' husband Jason behind her.
"I told him he just better hang on," Graham laughed.
It all started with an idea a couple of years ago when Graham heard that a skijoring event took place in Calgary and she told everyone who would listen that it could done right here in Prince George. So they held the event last year during a bitterly cold day and then again this year with the event starting in a snow storm.
"It makes me like winter," Graham said about the unique event.
