Pack burro racers are ground trainers from hell. We train our animals for the three to 30-mile burro races from the ground and may never get on the donk or hitch up a cart behind the animal. Pack burro racing is a little known sport where thin clad runners sprint, jog, walk and race alongside donkeys laden with 35 pounds of mining gear. Consequently, we spend most or all our time on foot navigating the same trails and roads that the beast runs.
It's always been kind of sad to me that hardly any young American knows how to handle a set of lines. Where do you think the term "teamster" comes from? This is too much fun to be left to the old timers. Rolling through the tunnel leading into the gaping, yawning National Western Stock Show arena is something akin to the thrill of Steven Boyd and Charlton Heston, Mr. NRA himself, rolling into Ben Hur's coliseum. It was particularly gratifying with monster Masai, who before his debut as a draft animal, looked like a big amiable life support system for a breeding mechanism. I've always known Oscar and Peckinpah liked to pull. But Masai relished it and floated around the arena. It's not that different an adrenaline rush to those initial surges from the pack stampeding in the early stages of a burro race. Ride em cowboy. Catch that wave; hang on to that comet because here we go.
