NPR: Omak Stampede Suicide Race

ANNOUNCER
40,000 spectators witnessed he 59th annual running of the Omak Stampede’s controversial suicide race. Diane De Rooy has the story.

DIANE
Twenty horses and riders charged over the edge of a bluff to plunge 250 feet down into the Okanogan River in a no-holds-barred contest considered barbaric by animal rights activists.

Cactus Jack Miller, with the Omak Stampede Association, calls the 1994 suicide runs “phenomenal.” He says most animal rights groups are misled as to how harmful this race is to horses.

No horses were killed but deaths of the past have brought PAWS'—the Progressive Animal Welfare Society’s—scrutiny to the race. Nine horses have been killed in the last 12 years.

PAWS didn’t hold a protest this year. It did attempt to stop the race by saying the horses block the river when crossing, violating a federal waterways law.

PAWS spokesman, Will Anderson, observed all four runs over the weekend. As riders come down the steep face of the bluff, they try to get in their opponents’ way, often causing massive pile-ups of horses and trampling of riders. Fights between riders are common, and participants are frequently taken away in ambulances.

Anderson says the audience is paying a $2 entry fee for the endangerment of human life and killing horses.

Miller defends the violence of the event, explaining that the same level of aggression exists in all sports. He likes to say it’s like sex; it’s wild and exciting and it’s over soon, and when you’re done all you want is more.

Anderson agrees the testosterone is out there, but it’s channeled into destruction and death. In a promotional video made for the suicide race, he cites 16 verbal allusions to pain and death, as well as 19 visual images of falling horses and injured riders.

While the Omak Stampede has the blessing of the National Rodeo Association, the suicide race is not sanctioned.

Anderson predicts several more horse deaths in future suicide races and says a human fatality is inevitable.

For Northwest Public Radio, I’m Diane De Rooy.