Skijoring: 'It gives us an excuse to get out in the winter'

When Jackson gets going, full bore, in the snow, all of his feet come off the ground at once. His nostrils flare, his neck stretches out long and he seems to smile, if a horse can do such a thing.

Jackson is a quarter horse and last week he did a lot of running, with his owner, Leah Mitchell in the saddle, racing in the Skijoring at Rebecca Farm.

Skijoring is an interesting sport, born from the fun of simply going fast and then, adding difficulty, like jumps and gates and rings.

The horse has a rider and the rider has a rope and at the end of the rope is a person on skis. A good horse like Jackson goes as fast as he can, while the skier goes over jumps and makes turns through gates and then has to run their arm through rigs hung from poles.

Miss a ring or a gate or let your butt hit the ground and you get docked time, or even disqualified, Mitchell explained.

Jackson and Mitchell been skijoring together for a few years now, along with skier Justin Kreps. Mitchell even has a practice course set up in the pasture of rural Columbia Falls home.

Jackson wears special studded shoes so he can get better traction in the snow. He also has a braided mane and red lightning bolts painted down his legs, courtesy of Mitchell, of course.

The three make a good team. They’ve even won a few events in the sport division — which is a notch below the pro class. The course is 850 feet long and in the pro class, the jumps are much higher — the tallest was 9 feet.

Even in the sport class, you need to be a good skier, Kreps notes.

There is a little purse money involved if you win, but mostly it’s for fun, Mitchell notes.

“It gives us an excuse to get out in the winter,” Mitchell said as the snow pounded down last Friday on the practice course.

Still, Mitchell took second in the sport class.

Mitchell wasn’t the only competitor from Columbia Falls. There were several other skiers from the area as well as a young horseman Jason Reinsberg, who rode the course at age 10.

This was the first year skijoring was held at Rebecca Farm. The two-day event started out last year in Lakeside. Saturday brought wind and heavy snow, but Sunday was met with clear cold skies and an enthusiastic crowd. A portion of the proceeds from this year’s competition were donated to Halt Cancer at X, an initiative that raises funds for breast cancer research and support services.