AUBURN, WASHINGTON – Relatives stood shoulder to shoulder alongside strangers as they crowded together on the warmest weekend of the year thus far, to watch the 10th Annual Muckleshoot Gold Cup Indian Relay at Emerald Downs.
21 teams from across 7 states and 2 Canadian provinces competed in the time-honored tradition of bareback horse relay at the Muckleshoot Gold Cup for $85,000 worth of prize money. Poitras Relay took home the gold, along with $14,200 in prize money, having completed the two mile track and four-horse race at 3 minutes and 31 seconds.
On his win, champion rider Joseph Jackson, member of the Whitefish Lake First Nation, said, “For me, people will never understand how grateful I am to be able to win this gold cup. I grew up watching the race since I was 12 to 13 years old. Never in a million years I’d think I could achieve this Muckleshoot Gold Cup.”
Unlike the typical three horse race, the Muckleshoot Gold Cup hosts four due to the abnormal mile-long size of the track and to keep the intensity of the Emerald Downs, Gayle Skunkcap Jr. told Underscore Native News, who is a member of the Blackfeet Nation and emcee for the Muckleshoot Gold Cup. According to him, relay is a combination of the speed of thoroughbred horse racing, the teamwork of NASCAR and the wildness of rodeo…