LEADVILLE, Colo. — Like a lot of things in the age of COVID-19, Leadville's 73rd Ski Joring event did not allow spectators but streamed the entire affair online.
The event started at noon and ends at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Ski Joring is a competition where a horse and rider pull a skier through a course with gates, jumps and rings. The skier is timed through the course, and penalties are assessed by missing gates or jumps and missing or dropping the baton or any of the rings. A random draw makes up the competitor's race for cash prizes and teams before the start.
Each competition lasts about three hours.
>> Watch Below: Day one of the races
According to the website, the sport's history goes as follows. Two close friends sat in a booth at the Golden Burro Café discussing Leadville's upcoming winter festivities, known as the Crystal Carnival.
It was 1949, and they were to come up with something new to add to the event list for the festivities. The two decided to take a trip and see whether they could bring back any ideas from the Steamboat Springs winter carnival. Steamboat was where Tom Schroeder and "Mugs" Ossman first witnessed the sport of Ski Joring, a horse-and-rider pulling a skier.
Their idea was to add speed to the game, and now the competition is held annually in Leadville during the first full weekend in March.
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