Cowboys rising in popularity, more riders from Kane, DuPage and DeKalb
BY PAUL LATOUR / For Sun-Times Media August 8, 2011 1:05PM
Melissa Daufenbach, of Elgin, Ill., competes during a Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association event at Ambers Sun Acres in Malta, Ill., on Sunday, July 31, 2011. | Andrew A. Nelles~For Sun-Times Media |
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Updated: November 16, 2011 1:47AM
Doug Anderson didn’t need much of a nudge to fall in love with cowboy mounted shooting, a sport that combines horse riding and pistols. ♦ The gun part came easy for Anderson, who grew up around firearms. Although he was never in the armed forces, he comes from a military family. His father kept a gun collection at the family home in Winslow, Ariz. And Anderson, who now lives in North Aurora, describes his uncle as a World War II aficionado.
The horse part came later. It wasn’t until about four years ago Anderson began riding, along with his wife, Nancy. Their friend, Torry Granrath, brought them to Wayne, where he keeps his horses. The Andersons took to riding quickly.
But the real excitement came when Granrath introduced them to cowboy mounted shooting.
Granrath tied some balloons to railings inside a barn. They equipped themselves with Colt .45 pistols and began shooting at the balloons while riding their horses.
“It was one of the most fun things I’d ever done,” Anderson said. “We just kind of cantered around and shot the balloons off the horses.”
“That was enough,” Nancy Anderson said as she slid an arched finger into her mouth and pulled back against her cheek, “hook ya!”
“Yeah, enough to hook me. Yep.” agreed her husband.
Doug Anderson, a 35-year-old medical equipment salesman, has a penchant for extreme sports. A former Ironman triathlete, he said he’s driven fast cars and fast motorcycles. It doesn’t compare to cowboy mounted shooting.
“I know you’re going a whole lot slower on a horse, but it seems a whole lot faster,” he said. “And then you add the guns to it and it makes for a really exciting time.”
Anderson isn’t the only local rider to enjoy the rush. At a recent event in Malta, just west of DeKalb, he was joined by Granrath and 25 others. The competitors included Melissa Daufenbach, a 44-year-old mother of two from Elgin, who also teaches world cultures at Ellis Middle School in Elgin; and Krissy Joy, a 26-year-old horse trainer from Winfield, who now lives in Sycamore.
Nancy Anderson, 38, also competes, but has taken a break from it while pregnant with the couple’s second child.
“I do it because it’s safe,” she said. “I’m not out there for speed. It’s just fun whether you walk, trot or gallop ... as long as you stay on your horse.”
Here’s how it works. A rider carries two .45 caliber single-action revolvers, each loaded with five rounds of blank ammunition. A course is set up with 10 targets (balloons). The first five targets are white and are designed in various patterns that require a rider to weave among them. The other five are red and set in a straight line.
After shooting at the first five targets, a rider must holster the pistol and grab the second one before going around a barrel at the far end of the arena to begin the “rundown.” The rider then sprints back to the finish line while trying to hit the remaining targets, which are spaced 36 feet apart.
Scoring is based on the fastest times. Five-second penalties are added for each missed target. The bullets are loaded with black powder, which can break a balloon from about 15 feet away but don’t present a danger for spectators.
The sport was born in the early 1990s but really has roots that stretch back to the 1950s, when Jim Rodgers was a teenager in Arizona. Rodgers and his friends would tie tin cans and bottles to barbed wire fences, and then ride by shooting at them with live ammunition.
Thirty-some years later, Rodgers saw a friend performing at a Wild West show in Arizona. As part of the act, the friend was shooting at balloons with a gun loaded with blank cartridges.
“That turned on a light right there,” Rodgers said from his home in Tucson. “We could shoot at balloons and it would be perfectly safe for spectators.”
The first event was held February 1992 in Phoenix. It had three competitors. From that beginning, the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association was formed and now boasts more than 11,000 members. They come from all 50 states and Canada, as well as Germany and Sweden.
Those involved say the same thing Doug Anderson discovered. Once you try it, you’re hooked. Rodgers said the sport’s appeal comes from being a family-friendly endeavor, but it also can be fiercely competitive.
The CMSA holds five major events — three U.S. regionals, a national championship and the world championship, which is held each October in Amarillo, Texas. There are divisions for men, women and senior men and women. Each division is split into subdivisions based on skill level.
Rodgers compares the sport to a ball game.
“The difference is we’re hurling down there at 30 mph on a horse and the ball is holding still,” he said.
While the CMSA runs the major events, local clubs run tournaments throughout the year. One such club is the Northern Illinois Outlaws. The Andersons not only belong to the NIO, they are on the board of directors. Doug Anderson is a director and Nancy is the treasurer.
The organization is the largest of its kind in the state. It is seven years old and has more than 70 members coming from as far north as Janesville, Wis., as far west as Rockford, and as far east as Chicago and the northern suburbs.
Members include Aurora businessman Jerry Rose, president of Total Living Network and reigning CMSA national champion in the senior men’s 1 division, as well as former Northern Illinois men’s basketball coach Ricardo Patton.
Last Sunday, the club held the Buzzard’s Banquet at the Amber Sun Acres, the ranch owned by Bill Phelps that also serves as NIO headquarters.
The Old West came to life out where corn stalks, silos and windmills define the landscape. Many of the participants and volunteers added to the setting by wearing period attire, which was once a CMSA requirement of participants.
Melissa Daufenbach kept her sandy blonde hair in a ponytail that hung down the back of a white, long-sleeve collarless shirt. Her patterned brown skirt ran to her ankles. Despite earning the nickname of Mad Hatter, Daufenbach had nothing on her head to protect from the bright sun beaming from a cloudless sky.
“I’m the Mad Hatter because I can’t keep my hat on,” she said. “I get past the timer and I flip my hat off, so that’s why they nicknamed me that. My alias used to be Itchy, because I had an itchy trigger finger.”
In contrast, Krissy Joy opted for a more modern look. Her green western shirt was tucked into a pair of blue jeans, which meant she had to wear leather chaps for the competition. Her white cowboy hat also was required because she wasn’t wearing a skirt.
Joy, who said she’s been riding horses since before she could walk, learned about the sport from an NIO member whose child was a student of hers. Joy started last summer and fell in love with everything about it.
“It’s fast, I like the guns, and it’s something new and different,” Joy said. “I was looking for something with a challenge.”
The day was filled with a family vibe and frivolity. In that setting horses don’t defecate, they “cook brownies.” Still, one cowboy — Jim Ed Erimie of Chicago — seemed particularly cantankerous. Looking like a close relative of actor Sam Elliot, Erimie wasn’t shy about giving his opinions.
At one point Erimie seemed especially agitated.
“This is not for beginners,” Erimie growled to nobody in particular. “This is an extreme sport.”
But don’t listen to him. Members such as Doug and Nancy Anderson will say to just try it. It’ll hook you.
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