His dad did it before him, now Dayton Sutherland has put himself in great position to win the 2024 Orville Strandquist Memorial Award.
Since 1992, the Calgary Stampede has awarded its top rookie driver with the award named in honour of Strandquist, whose professional career spanned an impressive seven decades.
“I was thinking about this (Monday) night,” said Sutherland, who’s one of three rookie drivers competing at the 2024 Cowboys Rangeland Derby. “You know, if cowboys could be gangster, Orville was a gangster. He was as cowboy as it got – like, just a man of many, many talents.”
Initially competing as a bull rider at the 1937 Calgary Stampede, Strandquist decided that the thrilling eight-second endeavour was too dangerous and subsequently turned his attentions towards wagon racing instead. He competed as an outrider from 1937-80 and as a driver from 1939-94.
When Dayton’s dad Mark won the rookie driver award at the Stampede in 1996, it was known as the Orville Strandquist Award. Following Strandquist’s death at the age of 91 in 2005, it became the Orville Strandquist Memorial Award.
“There’s a reason that we’re still talking about him today and everybody knows who he is,” said Sutherland, who piloted his Truman Homes outfit to an aggregate time of 8:39.71 through seven nights of racing to put him 16th out of 27 drivers in the standings. “He did a lot of different things. He was he was very, very cowboy, so to compete for an award that’s named after him is a huge honor.”
Heading into the final three nights of action, Sutherland has a comfortable 3.74 second lead over fellow rookie reinsman Chance Flad, who’s nearly three ticks of the clock ahead of the third freshman in the race, Chance Thomson.
“I haven’t talked to either of the Chances about it,” said Sutherland, who’s hoping to maintain his lead to win the $3,000 prize that comes with the award. “We’re obviously all friendly and there’s only three of us. We’ve known each other for a long time. I haven’t been focusing on it too much.
“It’s the luck of the draw and how the Stampede shakes out, but ultimately, I’m just happy that we’ve got three rookies here. I think that’s more than we typically have at a Stampede – there’s a hunger and young blood and new guys to come in and compete here. I think that’s a healthy thing for the sport.”
If he wins the rookie race, Sutherland and his dad will become the second father-son combination to earn the accolade after the duo of Mike and Chanse Vigen. Mike won back in 1993, while Chanse accepted the award in 2013.
Wade Salmond, who beat out Preston Faithful for the award last year in one of the closest contests ever, followed in the footsteps of his cousin Rod, who won in 1994.
Other current drivers who have been named top Rangeland Derby rookies are Troy Dorchester (1998), Kurt Bensmiller (2002), Obrey Motowylo (2009), Kris Molle (2014), Chad Fike (2015) and Danny Ringuette (2019).
“So much can happen and you just need so much horsepower here,” said Sutherland, who admitted that competing at his first Rangeland Derby has come with a steep learning curve. “This track is quite a bit shorter than all the other tracks that we race at … so certain horses will do better here than they will at other shows.”
Out of the 36 horses he owns, Sutherland brought 18 of them to the barns behind the Stampede Park track for the 10-day show.
“I didn’t manage my barns, my team – if you will – for this track,” he said. “I managed them more to get here – to be competitive on the rest of the (World Professional Chuckwagon Association) circuit – because they use our points to determine which guys get here, which guys get cut. So, that part’s been a learning curve and I’ll definitely take that into consideration next year and the years following.”
Keeping the horses he brought to Calgary healthy and happy has occupied most of Sutherland’s time when he’s not racing.
“It’s just like an athlete,” he said. “There might be a hockey player out there with a shoulder injury from two years ago, but he’s still getting that physio done, just that maintenance work … those things keeping them at the tip-top shape.
“It’s not that they’re not going to be able to compete if they don’t have it, but our game is a game of hundredths of a second, so you’re always trying to keep them at that pin-point, tip-top accuracy fitness level feeling good and just keep them at their very best.”
The grandson of 12-time Rangeland Derby champion Kelly Sutherland has learned lots of the tricks of the trade from his family over the years. One of those is feeding his horses with high-quality alfalfa.
“I’m a big believer in getting that that rich alfalfa and if you have that alfalfa, you don’t necessarily need to feed all the extra supplements, the additives that you can buy in your local feed store to bring the horses back up to that level,” he said. “That really, really good hay has pretty much all the vitamins horses needs.”
And what do his horses like for a snack?
“A lot of carrots,” he replied. “The kids, when they come to the barn tours, they love handing out the carrots.”