More trailer parking needed to host larger events

By Ian MacKay

The riding arena needs more space to park horse trailers before local groups can stage larger events there, councillors heard last week.

Trent Aylward told the May 4 council meeting that about 70 horse trailers can park beside the riding arena at the north end of the sports grounds. Aylward serves on a high-school rodeo board and volunteers with barrel-racing events held here regularly from spring to fall.

He suggested using the adjacent soccer field as parking, estimating it would hold about 50 trailers. But the town received grants to install turf and an underground sprinkling system there, Mayor Trevor Hay said.

"It's tough to give that up for something that's used for parking on a weekend," Hay said. While soccer has faded locally, interest could revive, he said.

Hay suggested using the area west and southwest of the riding arena instead. Barrel racers warm up horses there, but that could shift to the old railroad bed on the west edge of the sports grounds.

Trailers could also park closer to the civic centre or the AGT Centre, he said. At many major events elsewhere, "You're walking half a mile," Hay said.

"I count 70 trailers every time we're there," Aylward said of barrel racing events, calling that "pretty crammed."

He'd like to stage rodeos here eventually. A Calves N Cans barrel racing event would draw about 150 trailers and 200 competitors, he said. Those events happen at Biggar and Asquith.

Organizers "want to have it here but we just don't have the parking," he said.

Rosetown "is easy to get to," Aylward said, noting some rodeo locations like Big Beaver are tiny and remote. "People want to come to an actual town" where they can shop and find motel rooms.

The economic impact of about 1,000 competitors and spectators for a weekend rodeo would be "massive," Aylward said.