Minden Ranch Rodeo set for this weekend

Tucked away in the East Valley this weekend, located well away from the action downtown will be the element of Carson Valley Days perhaps most rooted in Carson Valley's true tradition.

The Minden Ranch Rodeo Buckaroo Fest will conduct its ninth running beginning Saturday morning.

"We are trying to preserve the old way," said Danny Nalder, who has competed in the rodeo since its inception. "It's been difficult. The average age at these rodeos is anywhere between 30 and 50. We are losing this part of our Valley.

"You very rarely find younger participants in this type of competition any more."

Sure, while mainstream rodeo is gaining popularity nationwide, the ranch rodeo takes a much different thread.

You won't see professional bareback riders, bull riders or team ropers out at the Douglas County Fairgrounds this weekend. You won't even see mainstream events.

The ranch rodeo, in its very nature, is meant to exhibit the work ethic and efficiency with which a working ranch is run.

"All of our events have to do with working aspects of a ranch," Nalder, who works for the Park ranch, said. "You don't really have set practice time. We just went through branding season and we're still trying to rope and brand a lot of these calves.

"That's our practice. It's basic day work."

Nalder competes with his brother, Steve Nalder, Todd Gansberg and Domingo Uhart on the Uhart-Gansberg team.

All four men grew up in the Valley and all four work on ranches.

"I did the mainstream rodeo until I got too old for it," Nalder said with a laugh. "I wasn't very good anyway.

"The thing about ranch rodeo is that it's all about teamwork. In regular rodeo, it's all about the individual events. With this, you could have the four best cowboys in the world and all it takes is one guy having a bad day to throw it off.

"On the other side, you could have four average guys who work together well and if you have a good day, you could win the whole thing. It really makes it interesting."

It also takes the edge off the competition.

"The camaraderie is great out there," Nalder said. "There is very little animosity between the teams, because you see these guys all the time. You're not competing against each other really, you're competing against the animal and hoping that your team can hold together."

Twenty-two teams have entered the Minden Ranch Rodeo this year.

"That's about all we can accommodate," Nalder said. "We get teams from California and Oregon in here, but most of the teams are from Nevada. We usually have about one or two teams made up of guys just from this Valley, but there are a lot of guys from here who compete on other teams too."

This weekend's rodeo is one of four stops on the new Nevada Saddle Series, which will also run in McDermitt, Yerington and Winnemucca this year. The top point-winners at the end of the series will receive new saddles.

"Everyone has to ride their own working horse in these competitions," Nalder said. "There aren't high-dollar horses out there for these rodeos. You have to go in and use one horse through the whole rodeo in every event you're in."

Events include ranch doctoring, where teams must select a calf from a herd, push the animal out and direct it between two barrels to the far end of the arena and rope it from head to heel. Another team member moves in and sets the ropes by moving the head rope to the front feet and then marks the calf with a chalk mark to show it was doctored.

"That's what we do out in the field so that we can tell which calves we've already taken care of," Nalder said.

Another event, wild cow milking, involves roping and milking a cow before running to the judges with milk in the bottle with several teams and several cows in the arena at once.

"There are some difference, like in the roping events, in regular rodeo they'll use a rubber stop on the saddlehorn to help stop the rope," Nalder said. "We aren't allowed to do that. It's not something we'd do on a ranch. You have to allow the rope to slide so that you don't hurt the cattle or your horse."

Other events are ranch bronc riding, team branding (cattle are marked with paint), big loop and ranch horse.

The rodeo begins Saturday with a 10 a.m. start time. It restarts Sunday at 10 a.m. with awards following at the J.T. in town.

All proceeds from the event go toward scholarships for Douglas County high school students.

For more information on the rodeo, call 782-5957.

-- Joey Crandall can be reached at jcrandall@recordcourier.com or at (775) 782-5121, ext. 212.