It was a shame our big Western weekend had to get cancelled.
We all missed the family fun time we look forward to year after year.
100 Mile House’s population swells on this weekend, as people take in the Little Britches Rodeo and Parade on Saturday. The Rough Stock Rodeo takes centre stage on Sunday and the Outriders Gymkhana rounds out the equine events for the Victoria long weekend.
It was a tough loss for the community, as the local businesses probably saw a drop in out-of-town dollars falling into the cash registers.
And the groups who supply or organize the events also saw the loss of revenue.
The weekend had already lost some steam with the loss of the Streetfest due to lack of volunteer help, and the Little Britches Parade was feeling the pinch of low volunteer numbers and a slow start for parade entries.
Some folks are already worrying about what will happen next year after this year’s cancellation.
Others are taking it further and pointing fingers, saying it should never have been cancelled in the first place.
However, we’re not buying into that mindset, and hindsight is always 20/20.
The organizers pulled the plug on the weekend because there was a scare about Neurotropic Equine Herpes Virus.
The cases stemmed from a National Cutting Horse Association event in Utah that ended May 8 and word from the equine circles there’s up to 12-day timeframe for horses to be contagious.
That puts us into the long weekend.
We believe the organizers were correct to be cautious about the potential spread of the disease.
We only need to consider the alternative if 100 Mile became ground zero for an outbreak.
As for what’s going to happen next year, this is the South Cariboo and folks here are tough as nails and have been through worse hardships than cancelling a weekend.
Western weekend will be back next Victoria long weekend and it’ll be bigger and better than ever.
