What a Relief! Behind the Chutes

Fantastic rodeo photographer, Dallas Duffy, was telling me all about the holdup at the buck chutes today.

Remember in the broadcast when all of a sudden a blue tarp went up covering behind the chutes? Well it turns out that Clay Elliott’s draw, C5 Rodeo’s Black Hills, experienced a freak accident. The horse had been saddled with Clay Elliott’s bronc saddle, and for some reason when entering the area behind the chutes, the horse reared up and got his front hoof jammed in an area by the panel. When the top-notch crew got the bronc free, the horse flipped over backwards onto Clay’s saddle.

Thankfully, the horse is all right –

But remember when Clay was saying in the interview afterwards that he was “worried about his saddle”? He didn’t know if the tree was broken when Black Hills flipped over backwards.

So that’s the story about the blue tarp, Clay’s saddle, the super-fast saddling job on his third horse of the day and ultimately – his Canadian championship.