KENDAL, Sask. — For some, the sport called cowboy mounted shooting is about the rush of competition, a passion for horses and the challenge.
For others, there’s the romance of experiencing the culture of the wild west in the 21st century.
For some, like the Quam family of Kendal, Sask., the sport has it all.
Cain Quam, his wife, Roberta, and their daughters Cheyenne, 19, and Jaelynn, 17, have all competed in mounted shooting events from Saskatchewan to Texas for five years.
The sport involves riding a horse through a twisting pattern of 10 balloons while shooting at the balloons using pistols and rifles filled with blank ammunition.
The sport is based on historical re-enactments of cowboy shooting events held as part of wild west shows in the late 19th century. Modern events use blank ammunition, which can break a target balloon within 20 feet.
“It’s a lot of adrenaline because there’s a lot going on,” said Cain Quam, who chairs the Saskatchewan Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association.
“You’re going fast and you’re running a gun. Both are fun alone and putting them together is very exciting. The first time we did it we were like, ‘oh yeah, we could do more of this.’ ”
From their two-quarter spread, the family operates Cain Quam Performance Horses. They also run a 25-head commercial cattle herd.
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Cain has been training horses and teaching people to ride for more than 30 years. Currently, their horse training and clinician business boards and trains about 50 horses. It features a large insulated indoor arena with 18 stalls and well-stocked tack shop.
Cain recently changed from training cutting horses to training mounted-shooting horses, as well as barrel and recreational horses. The business also holds clinics to teach people how to ride and train their own horses.
“I’m a fourth generation horse trainer, so I kind of come by it honestly and just always been drawn to horses,” he said.
He spent much of his early years on the road with his parents, who organized rodeos throughout Canada.
They helped him learn how to train horses, and were horse trainers and rodeo competitors in their own right.
“We lived on the road, basically, and as I got older, I also started competing. But I was training horses at the same time and decided that was a sounder career than actually being a rodeo competitor,” Cain said.
Roberta was not raised on a farm, but took up riding and roping cattle soon after she married Cain 25 years ago.
She said she was cautious when she first started mounted shooting, but it grew on her.
“I didn’t like going fast on a horse and didn’t really care about guns, but when I did try it, there’s just something really neat about it. Learning to manoeuvre your horse in the pattern is really huge and once you get the shooting down, handling the gun is more about the horsemanship,” she said.
The sport requires a variety of technical, athletic and equine skills.
“There’s so much going on. You’re going fast, running with a gun while focusing on a balloon all at the same time and trying to hit a line and turn in the perfect spot. You might be turning left while looking right and shooting right,” said Cain.
“It takes a ton of practice and a ton of mental preparation. That’s one thing that’s really fun about this sport is it really is a mental game. It looks fairly simple, but once you actually start to apply it, it becomes quite complex.”
The horses also enjoy it and quickly gain more confidence around the noise of gunfire.
“It engages the horse because of the patterns. It’s not a routine. So, it’s new and interesting to the horse, just like it is for the rider. The rider is having so much fun that the horse actually feeds off that,” said Roberta.
A wall in the tack shop at Cain Quam Performance Horses is covered with competition buckles the family has won.
The Quams have won many state and regional championships throughout the United States and Canada since starting in 2012. Cain was the first and only Canadian who made the top 10 overall at the world finals in Amarillo, Texas, in 2016.
True to its heritage, cowboy mounted shooting rules require competitors to use an imitation 1873 pistol, the original action revolver.
“It’s just an iconic type of gun. Most of the revolvers and rifles you’ll see in a western movie are an 1873 model,” said Cain.
While many contestants use a $1,000 Colt clone pistol, the Quams use a Ruger New Vaquero that uses a newer internal mechanism, but is still historically authentic. Rifles run about $2,000.
Blank cartridges are loaded with coarse black powder, typically used in muzzleloaders. The powder continues to burn after exiting the barrel, which is what pops the balloon.
“The blanks are engineered and loaded to a specification so they won’t pop a balloon past 20 feet. They will burn up at about 25 feet and there’ll be no projectile left whatsoever. That way it’s safe for spectators,” he said.
Beyond the competitive spirit, romance with the western lifestyle tugs many people into the sport.
“I think it’s partially the cowboy tradition. If you think of the wild west, there are visions of those guns, the hats and the chaps. That’s something we’ve tried to recreate in this sport is that whole cultural kind of nostalgic cowboy, western-type feel. That’s part of the draw,” he said.
“I think a lot of the people that get into cowboy mounted shooting aren’t necessarily real-life cowboys, but they always wanted to be one and this gives them an opportunity to get their toes a little wet.”
