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Show BEVERLY HILLS. The other day, in fact a couple of weeks ago on the Fourth of July, I went ovei to Prescott, Ari- zona, to see their Frontier celebration. celebra-tion. Its the oldest old-est rodeo, or affair af-fair of that sort. In existence 45 years. It has the best ropers in the world. Its a small contest, but all the best calf and steer roper? come pionship ball game they had the other day between the very pick of each league, just anybody that had a bat couldent get in it. You had to be chosen, so naturally every cowboy cow-boy in Canada, the D. S. and Mexico wants to go to the Worlds Fair to do his stuff. Its an Olympic games of the wild west sports. It will mean something to win there. Then, too, running 17 days, that means you will rope seventeen calves, ride seventeen bronks. -Generally they run about 4 days, and your time or performance is judged by that many times, but this will be so long that any element ot luck will be eliminated. elimi-nated. It wiii be like a golf championship, cham-pionship, instead of being So or seventy-two holes, being about 300 holes. I been a sight seeing patron Of these things for a long time, and have been yapping for just such a mode of really there. In fact its mighty near home for a lot of them, for Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma, harbors the cream of the ropers. The North has the riders. rid-ers. Canada, Montana, Wyoming, and all those Northern states where the big stout horses grow is Uk home of the real bucking horse setters, set-ters, but when you want a mean loop spread on something, come South, and if you get over into Mexico Mex-ico you get still better. But the Mexican Mex-ican has never gone in for contest roping, like tying calves or steers against time. Well over at this contest all the boys were excited for the biggest contest ever held in the history of all rodeo history is to he held in Chicago in Soldiers Field right in the World's Fair Grounds, the biggest big-gest stadium in America. It runs select ing the best boy in each event every year, but this Is the first one. You see this is not a show, It is really and truly a contest. No person is paid a cent unless they win it. There will be various prize money given each day for just the winners of that particular day. That gives about seventeen days from August 25 to September 10th. Now what had all these old boys excited was that this contest was not like all the others oth-ers that they hold. If you come and paid your entrance fees, you were one of the contestants. But not at this one. You come by invitation, and just some friend couldent invite in-vite you. You have to be selected by a committee of well known and prominent rcueo men, who took the results of 24 of the leading contests like Cheyenne, Pendleton, Calgary. Ft. Worth, Madison Square Garden N. Y. and Prescott, (well, as I say, 24 of the biggest). Then they took the records of these for 4 years, and added up the numbers ot times each contestant had won first, 2nd, or third, and got each man's general average over all this time. They pick 30 men in each line, also some alternates in case some of the first 30 are not able to go, but the alternates alter-nates are the next best records In line to the first ones picked. But at this one Its like that cham- a chance to the boys who might not win the grand finals (meaning an average of all the days) but who might do the best on some particular particu-lar day. But he ships his own horse there, pays his own expenses while there, and pays 30 dollars entrance fees for each thing he enters. There is no wild west show about it. Its a real business a'ld not a racket with these boys, so no wonder these old cowboys over at Prescott the other day was trying to make this preferred pre-ferred list. Its an honor to be on there, even if you dont win anything. It means you are among the 30 best in your line. I would sho give a lock of my best hair to be among the best at anything, checkers, horseshoe, spitting spit-ting at a crack, or even golf or beer drinking, it would show you was really good at something. I sho want to see this contest, if I am not right in the middle of a movie, which I will just about be. Imagine a fellow having to miss a big rodeo, j.ist to make a lot of faces at a camera. And not good faces either. If -3 McSiugk! Syndicate. Inc. |