The wildest sport in the West with death-defying speed, broken bones and 5,000 spectators gasping ‘holy s***’

A collective gasp escapes the 5,000-strong crowd as Savannah McCarthy races at blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed on horseback down the main street of the highest incorporated city in North America. 

The flanks of her mount, Tank, glisten in the Colorado sunlight with decorative sparkles as the pair fly down Leadville’s historic Harrison Avenue, pulling a skier behind them with a 30-foot rope through an obstacle course of jumps and ring-grabbing over a track of hard-packed snow – as the crowd goes wild.

The trio mark the first team competing this weekend in Leadville’s 77th annual skijoring competition, which for years was one of only a handful of events in North America dedicated to the lightning-fast, exciting and fundamentally dangerous spectacle of a sport. The Leadville race bills itself as ‘the Grand Daddy of ’em all.’

McCarthy is the all-time title holder in Leadville, winning her 10th competition there last year – and she has legions of fans egging her on as she parades Tank around, the horsewoman’s own red-tinted curls glistening over a hot pink vest, fringed black sleeves and chaps.

A hefty portion of spectators, however, are viewing the sport and Savannah for the first time; a chorus of gleefully astounded ‘Oh my Gods!’ and ‘Holy s***s!’ rings out as new fans realize just how fast and dexterous skijoring can be. Savannah’s team completed the course from 8th Street to 4th Street in just 16.88 seconds, before onlookers could scarcely grasp what they’d seen.

Skijoring is soaring in popularity, fuelled by the latest iteration of cowboy culture having its day – think everything from Yellowstone to Beyonce’s country album – and by social media, which provides a perfect platform for showcasing the ‘nerve-wracking’ sport.

Derived from a Norwegian word meaning ‘ski driving,’ skijoring involves a rider on horseback towing a skier behind at speeds that can top 40 miles per hour in a race to beat competitors’ obstacle course completion times. Some events tow skiers using snowmobiles or even dogs; canines are barred from Leadville completely during its competition, however, lest they spook the equine stars of the show.

‘You get that horse in there, and he knows what his job is – he wants to go,’ long-time competitor Jerry Kissell, 61, tells DailyMail.com. ‘And that horse is zero to full speed on the Leadville track, three strides and you’re gone.’

Savannah McCarthy is the all-time title holder at the Leadville skijoring competition, where she won for the tenth time last year; the sport involves a rider on horseback towing a skier on a 30-foot rope through an obstacle course of jumps and suspended rings that must be grabbed by the skier with a baton

Skijoring originated in Europe and made its way to North America in the early 1900s – but the sport has been skyrocketing in popularity in recent years with the advent of social media and the current mainstream appeal of cowboy culture

Leadville organizer Duffy Counsell, left, poses with his son, Brennan, 21, who competed this weekend in the city’s 77th annual event. Skijoring, 48-year-old Duffy says, ‘is the most nerve-wracking, exhilarating, adrenaline-rush method of skiing I’ve ever experienced. There’s nothing that makes your heart beat more per minute than being pulled behind a horse, relinquishing control and trying to accomplish a common goal that the rider and I have set out’

Skijoring originated in Europe and is believed to have made its official debut in Stockholm at the Winter Games of 1901 before featuring as a demonstration at the Winter Olympics in France in 1924 and an exhibition at the Winter Olympics in Switzerland four years later, according to Skijor USA.

Around the same time, isolated events and competitions were popping up in America in places such as Lake Placid, NY and Steamboat Springs in Colorado – where two enterprising men from Leadville, 120 miles south and 3,400 feet higher, watched participants at a winter carnival and returned home with a plan to put their own spin on it in 1949.

They ramped up the speed factor and designed an obstacle course with gates, jumps and rings that laid the groundwork for Western-style skijoring as it exists today. Now the sport’s a frenzied combination of cowboy culture and the skiing world, enjoying a significant crossover with rodeo.

Depending on the event, some riders and skiers compete in pre-arranged pairs; other times, it’s a draw. And it’s usually a pairing from unlikely tribes.

‘You’ve got two very different cultures – the rodeo, Western equine group, and then you have this thick, deep ski community,’ says Jed Moore, 46, a 13-year professional bull rider and a skijoring competitor for the past five. ‘Generally, those two don’t overlap very much, and now we’ve created this symbiotic sport that we have to work together.’

Whether cowboy or skier, however, it’s not for the faint of heart. Ask enthusiasts about the types who choose to participate and you’ll get constant echoes of the same answers: Speed junkies. Adrenaline junkies.

‘Very competitive people who like living right on that edge of … I don’t like the word danger, but risk, but always feel like they’re in control of it, even when they’re on the edge – and persons who love doing that and know what’s at stake,’ Jerry Kissell says. ‘You’re going to get hurt.’

Most serious competitors, skiers and riders alike, have weathered injuries and a menagerie of broken bones. Two years ago during a race, a horse of Moore’s named Peaches ‘decided she’d had enough’ and bucked him off; it turned out he’d broken his scapula in three places, but he still finished three runs that day and six the next … riding ‘with one hand.’

Jerry Kissell, 61, a Leadville native and long-time competitor, says the sport attracts ‘very competitive people’ who like living ‘on the edge’ – and are willing to accept: ‘You’re going to get hurt.’ Most serious competitors have suffered a menagerie of falls and broken bones

Unlike original European iterations of the sport, Western skijoring has evolved to feature obstacle courses with jumps, suspended rings and even fire. The number of competitions in North America now numbers around 40

The daredevil nature of events is also increasing; one course in Montana even includes jumps with flames shooting out of them

According to Leadville organizer Duffy Counsell, a local skijoring legend once told him: ‘Duff, it’s like ski racing, but if the crowd was throwing snowballs at your nuts’

About 5,000 people turned out this weekend in Leadville to witness the spectacle and pageantry of skijoring, with competitors dressing up in regalia ranging from cowboy hats and fringed chaps for riders to shorts for skiers – with some coating their horses in shimmer dust and adding decorative tinsel to their tails 

For skiers, the horses towing them are ‘kicking stuff back at you off their heels that’s going near the same speed as you are going forward – so when that stuff hits you, and it can hit you anywhere, right in the neck, in the teeth, in the nose, other places, and you’re going 30-plus miles an hour, you’re taking fastballs,’ says Duffy Counsell, who organizes the Leadville event.

He says a local skijoring legend once told him: ‘Duff, it’s like ski racing, but if the crowd was throwing snowballs at your nuts.’

Counsell, 48, grew up in Wisconsin and had never heard of skijoring until he moved to the Colorado mountains.

‘It, by far, is something that someone tries and, after the first time, they know real certain: “Hey, I’m going to cross that off my bucket list,” or “I think I’m changed. I can’t wait to do this again.”’

He fell into the second category and competed for about 15 years.

‘It is the most nerve-wracking, exhilarating, adrenaline-rush method of skiing I’ve ever experienced,’ he says ‘There’s nothing that makes your heart beat more per minute than being pulled behind a horse, relinquishing control and trying to accomplish a common goal that the rider and I have set out in advance.’

Describing skijoring as ‘death-defying,’ Ski Magazine pondered in 2021 whether it constituted ‘the most dangerous sport on skis.’

Skijoring indeed brings ‘that sense of danger,’ says Counsell’s son and current competitor Brennan, 21.

‘It’s Main Street in Leadville, you’ve got several thousand people on either side, and you’re going right down the middle of them. Worst case scenario, some people could very well get hurt, but we do our best to try and mitigate that and keep the spectators informed,’ Brennan says.

‘There is a beauty to the visual content that skijoring offers; it’s very hard to compare it to many other things,’ Skijor USA chair Loren Zhimanskova says. ‘You’ve got these backdrops of snowy mountains and [a] snowy course or fields. You’ve got the absolute grace and power of horses. You’ve got cowboys and cowgirls that are dressed head to toe in full regalia.’

Both spectators and competitors are drawn to the inherent risk of the sport; 21-year-old Brennan Counsell says: ‘As the skier’s going, you never know what could happen. They could take a bad fall and go flying into the crowd. The horse might get a little bit too excited and keep running off track. If the rider falls off the horse, that’s a whole different problem. Then you’ve got a horse on the loose.’ But participants and organizers emphasize that horse safety is the priority throughout all of skijoring

Several skiers took tumbles in Leadville on Saturday before popping back up to the cheers of the crowd. ‘If anyone knew how difficult this must be to do – it should be a professional sport,’ says onlooker Cody Blazek, 34, who travelled to Leadville from the Denver metro area to watch his fourth skijoring event in the city

‘As the skier’s going, you never know what could happen. They could take a bad fall and go flying into the crowd. The horse might get a little bit too excited and keep running off track. If the rider falls off the horse, that’s a whole different problem. Then you’ve got a horse on the loose.’

Horse safety is the priority at the Leadville competition and other events, where tracks are carefully inspected for dips and problems and where riders can stop the race at any moment.

Race organizers in the West, over the years, have learned the hard way. Horses have had to be put down after falls and other incidents; Jerry Kissell laments losing one horse to a broken leg in the past and another to a heart attack suffered on the course.

Three people were trampled and later sued after a drone spooked a horse during a 2017 skijoring event in Silverton, Colorado; drones, now, are a big no-no at competitions.

Moore, who’s competing in at least seven events this year, carefully conditions and trains his horses to prepare for skijoring season, fitting them with special shoes and carbide tips. For everyone, really, the focus on the safety of the horses far outweighs that of humans.

‘Skiers and riders are voluntarily participating and signing waivers,’ says Loren Zhimanskova, chair of Skijor USA. ‘The horse is not.’

‘Riders … there’s plenty of them,’ Duffy Counsell says. ‘And skiers, they’re a dime a dozen. They’ll bounce off of just about anything. But our focus, and every event’s focus, is about achieving the highest track safety factor for the horses, as they’re arguably the most important teammate of the three.’

Zhimanskova only became aware of skijoring after moving 13 years ago to a rural Colorado town, where she was invited to volunteer at a race; once she laid eyes on the sport in action, she was hooked. She became an event organizer locally before setting up informational websites for the sport, encouraging races to set up sites for their own events, promoting standardization and best-practice safety procedures.

‘It just helped the whole sport to become more organized, more accessible,’ she tells DailyMail.com. ‘It gained a lot more exposure because people could google it, and they would find these sites.’

Many within the tight-knit world of skijoring hope the sport will be featured as an exhibition or demonstration for the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City; others have mentioned some type of league or the X Games

Serious competitors condition their horses throughout the year to participate, getting them ready for the physical and emotional stresses of the races in addition to outfitting them with special shoes and other preparations

Similarly, skijoring content has spread like wildfire on social media. Many in the Leadville crowd this weekend said they’d traveled to see the sport in person after coming across reels or content on platforms like Instagram.

‘There is a beauty to the visual content that skijoring offers; it’s very hard to compare it to many other things,’ Zhimanskova tells Dailymail.com. ‘You’ve got these backdrops of snowy mountains and [a] snowy course or fields. You’ve got the absolute grace and power of horses. You’ve got cowboys and cowgirls that are dressed head to toe in full regalia.’

As awareness of the sport grows, opportunities to participate are also increasing. There are now about 40 competitions across the US and Canada – from Maine to Minnesota to Montana – with some races so popular they have to put a cap on entries.

‘Just in the last couple of years, the number of races … has been booming,’ Moore tells DailyMail.com.

The daredevil nature of events is also increasing; one course in Montana even includes jumps with flames shooting out of them. 

‘I feel that I have come into skijoring at a pivotal season in its life,’ he says. ‘Professional rodeo went through the very same thing in the 50s and 60s … they were slow to change for the benefit of the sport and the benefit of the contestants.’

But he thinks it won’t be too long before skijoring will see sanctioned events and a governing body; he believes the sport would be a perfect fit for the X games and, like many others in the skijoring world, would like to see it as an exhibition sport for the 2034 Salt Lake City Olympics.

‘If anyone knew how difficult this must be to do – it should be a professional sport,’ says Cody Blazek, 34, who travelled to Leadville from the Denver metro area to watch his fourth skijoring event in the city.

He first found out about it through social media at the end of the pandemic – and has witnessed the sport’s momentum each year.

The first year he attended, he says, ‘it probably was 1,000 people, very comfortable walking around, find a spot here, move over there.

‘Now it’s like you have to hold your spot three hours ahead if you want to keep your view.’