Three beating hearts: How the Leadville ski joring champions get it done
LEADVILLE, Colo. — It’s below freezing on a bluebird Saturday morning, but the energy is hot in Leadville. The sun is already beating down on the fresh snow from the night before. Horses are being loaded in and out of trailers while cones are placed along the historic Harrison Avenue. There’s a steady flow of foot traffic. Many of the spectators are sporting cowboy hats, fur coats — and beers in hand. For someone without the knowledge of the day’s events, it would be hard to distinguish exactly what was causing this commotion.
Most days, Leadville’s main road is home to leisurely traffic, tourists, and skiers. On the first weekend in March, Harrison Avenue turns into a guns-blazing extreme sport course — it’s the annual ski joring competition, celebrating its 78th year in Leadville.
“Ski joring is a three heartbeat sport,” said Patrick Smith, one of the athletes. “You’ve got the heartbeat of the horse, heartbeat of the skier, and the heartbeat of the rider.”
A skier, a horse, and a rider — an unusual combination, but the only one that could produce a spectacle as jaw-dropping as ski joring. The sport is Scandinavian in origin, but has a long history in Colorado, dating back to the early 20th century. Due to its eye-catching nature, ski joring has recently gone viral in the U.S. The sport involves a horse and rider pulling a skier by a rope through a course of jumps and obstacles.
Leadville’s competition is broken into three categories — open, sport, and novice, with the largest number of athletes competing in sport. Scores are determined by how fast the course is completed. Horses and riders reach speeds of 40 miles per hour.
“It's my job as a rider to take that skier through the course and off their jumps safely, so it's not just a runaway horse race,” Smith said, who would be joined by his skier Bryson Threatt later that morning (more on him later).
Leadville’s ski joring event, affectionately referred to as "the Grand Daddy Of 'Em All,” is the most esteemed competition in the season, drawing more than 100 athletes and thousands of spectators. Over the decades, the Leadville course has served as a grand finale of sorts for the sport. It brings in the top talent and makes waves on social media, thanks to the stunned civilians watching skiers and horses move at breakneck speeds under traffic lights.
Smith, a Colorado rancher who won both the Grand Lake and Estes Park ski joring competitions earlier in the season, is among that top talent.
“Now we’re here to win Leadville,” Smith said as he prepped his horse Frankie Moon, a five-year-old quarter horse with a penchant for speed. “Frankie is lightning fast, you’ll see in a little bit.”
Ski joring is a mile a minute experience. Smith said short runs last about 15 seconds, and longer runs about 25, resulting in about two to four blocks of distance.
“Everything stands still for a moment, and then it's just like an explosion,” Smith said. “And down the track we go and everything's a blur. All I'm focused on is gates, rings, jumps, [and] finish.”
As a rancher, Smith prioritizes horse safety above all — something that he says can be a make or break situation in ski joring. Smith spent his morning in Leadville prepping Frankie Moon with Clare Gilligan, a newcomer to the sport and student of Smith’s expertise. Gilligan and Smith worked together to deck out Frankie Moon with special horse shoes for traction, shin guards to prevent injury, and rubber packing on her shoes to ensure the snow doesn’t get stuck in her feet.
Gillian explained these small steps ensure horse safety and optimize performance, things that set Smith apart from the competition.
“Patrick is my ski joring dad,” Gilligan said, “No one out here prioritizes horse safety like he does, and it shows in the way he wins races.”
This winter's record-high temperatures have been a challenge for ski joring, with Grand Lake canceling its second day of competition due to unsafe conditions. The question of whether the same fate would befall Leadville loomed over the event, only to be met with relief at the sight of snowfall the day before the race.
Heading up from the staging area to Harrison Avenue, Smith meets up with Threatt, who is hard to miss with his blonde, flowing hair. Threatt is getting ready to barrel down the course behind Smith and Frankie Moon. A professional skier and last year’s sport division champion, Threatt said winning the title at the biggest ski joring competition was a life and career highlight.
“There’s a photo of me holding the champion belt buckle, and my friends said they hope I look at my kids like that someday,” Threatt said with a laugh as he anxiously waited for his run. “Hopefully I’ll add another buckle to the collection with my boy, Patrick Smith.”
While Smith and Threatt don’t train together in the offseason and have only competed together once before, the two are some of the more decorated athletes in the sport. Returning to Leadville for the third time, Threatt said the pre-race period is a lot of waiting.
“There's really no warmup in this sport,” Threatt said. “As soon as we’re handed the rope, it’s go time. Sometimes we drive like, eight hours for a race, for a 15, 16 second run. So it's a lot of thinking and standing around for a short little run.”
Competing among 64 other duos in the sport division, Threatt and Smith’s run was scheduled for the middle of the pack. Few teams made it to the end without the skier falling. The two share some thoughts and strategize, Smith looking down at Threatt from atop Frankie Moon.
“That jump toward the end is taking a lot of people out,” Smith said to Threatt.
Threatt said he blacks out before the run starts, blinded by the nerves and anxiety before reaching top speeds and hurling off jumps. Once the race is over, however, he’s reminded why he does this — to him, it’s the most fun he’s ever had.
“It’s pretty indescribable,” Threatt said. “Barreling down main street in Leadville, having this crowd just roaring, lining up next to all these bars and restaurants. I can't even describe it.”
Shoulder-to-shoulder spectators several rows deep on both sides of Harrison Avenue cheered and screamed for the athletes as they whizzed by, with many sentiments like ‘this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen’ shared among the crowd. Children and adults of all ages lined the guard rails, making the afternoon a true family affair.
“I've noticed the sport is totally ramped up and taken off,” Threatt said. There's a lot more races, and those races are a lot more competitive to get into. There's a lot more spectators showing up at each one.”
Race time. Threatt and Smith head to the start line and take off down the track, finishing with a time of 21 seconds, and Threatt manages to best the tricky jump that many teams had fumbled before them.
Between this time, a second run on Saturday, and final runs on Sunday, the team has officially done it — they have won the sport division of The Grand Daddy Of Them All.
“We certainly aren’t making any money off of this,” Smith said, although the two did receive a few hundred dollars as a cash prize (plus the famous belt buckle and a Leadville-made jacket). “We do it for the love of the sport.”
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