With safety for horses and drivers at top of mind, a student at the University of Calgary has turned his focus to engineering a safer chuckwagon to be raced at the Calgary Stampede.
The popular chuckwagon races are a beloved event for stampede goers, but each year there’s the potential for wagon wrecks or accidents that can lead to horses and drivers being injured, or in some cases, horses dying.
A horse was euthanized after suffering an injury to its lower leg during a race on Saturday night.
In the hopes of finding a solution to that issue, engineering student Sam Pollock has spent the summer studying the chuckwagons, specifically the chuckwagon poles, to find a way to make them safer.
The poles connect the team of running horses to the undercarriage of the wagon. During races and training, the poles are put under intense stress, occasionally causing them to fail — when they bend or break.
Using video, strain gauges, accelerometres and a pole donated to the lab by the Calgary Stampede, Pollock will study the ways the poles perform during the races to see where they falter and try to determine the best ways to avoid that.
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“My goal is to gain a better understanding of why chuckwagon poles fail, how they fail and to suggest some design changes to reduce the risk of failure,” Pollock said.
Pollock’s research, which was spearheaded by the Stampede, is being overseen by Mark Ungrin, a professor in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, and Art Kuo, a professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology.
Competitors jumping on the chuckwagon
As a competitor, Mark Sutherland is excited to get involved with the research. Though he said he’s never had a pole fail in his 25 years, he knows the importance of keeping the sport safe.
“It’s not something that’s common, but it’s something that’s possible,” Sutherland said.
READ MORE: Driver uninjured in Rangeland Derby chuckwagon crash at 2016 Calgary Stampede
The pole is where the power is, Sutherland explained. Without a steering wheel or accelerator in the chuckwagon, the wagon is “pure horsepower,” meaning the poles are stressed with every movement the horses make.
“We need to understand where the potential weaknesses are on these poles… then we need to get a design… that’s as best as we can design, and then hopefully that eliminates any pole failures during competition,” Sutherland said.
Drivers already aware of issues
Through a survey, Pollock learned a lot about how racers maintain their chuckwagons, noting that they often replace poles every two to three years.
However Pollock admits that some of the issues leading to the failures could be avoided.
“It’s cutting corners and user error that cause the failures that I’ve seen,” he said.
It’s hoped that eventually Calgary Stampede will have a mandatory pole and a replacement schedule for racers.
Pollock said this year’s Stampede will mark the “first step of many” as he starts his research.
“I’m going to be able to tell a couple things about the safety factors of some aspects of the pole to the Stampede this year,” Pollock said.
“Then, over the next several years probably, we’ll kind of incrementally learn everything we can and design is going to get better every year.”
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