A local rider is coming to her home region to perform at the Fergus Fall Fair.
Chloe Boydell, 26, has been with the Canadian Cowgirls for four seasons and she’s looking forward to performing in front of her friends and family at the Fergus fair on Sept. 17 and 18.
“It’s exciting and I’m happy to show them what I do and who we are,” she said. “They’re all very supportive of this; (it’s) not even a hobby, it’s a lifestyle …
“They’re supportive when I’m away and they’re supportive when I’m coming home at 5 o’clock in the morning from a road trip to the other side of the province. So it’s nice to be able to share that with them.”
The Canadian Cowgirls is a rodeo-style precision drill team and their show in Fergus will include an hour -long performance of different drills and paces to music.
Boydell lives in Brampton and boards her horse in Erin. Her love of horseback riding began when she was just 7 years old.
“My parents signed me up for a riding camp and they thought it would be a phase and I fell in love with it,” she said. “And following that they signed me up for a six-week pack of riding lessons as a birthday present and my mother will swear up and down that it was the most expensive birthday present that she ever gave me because it never stopped.”
From that point on Boydell increased her time in the saddle, taking more lessons, part boarding and showing.
Eventually she purchased her own horse, a 10-year-old quarter horse named Sysco, who she’s now had for about nine years.
“I spent a summer working at a camp and fell in love with a horse that was not supposed to come home with me and he’s just given me all of the opportunities to do everything that I ever wanted to do basically,” she said.
Even though Sysco was a western trail horse, Boydell saw his potential and chose him to be her staff show horse during the summer camp.
“I put the work in, I put the miles in on him and at the end of the summer I couldn’t walk away,” she said. “He had to come home.”
Since then the pair seems to be unstoppable. Boydell says Sysco takes everything in stride and now they often compete in jumper shows.
“He just is game to play and try anything and I mean he put me in the dirt a lot while we were learning,” she said. “I was 16 or 17, I’d never trained a horse before. It was trial and error on both sides. It somehow worked out.”
Sysco is boarded at Whitney Stables in the Town of Erin. It was at that farm one of Boydell’s friends introduced her to the Canadian Cowgirls and invited her to one of the precision drill team’s practices.
“I went out there and I was just … ‘I could do this. My horse could do this,’” she recalled. “And we had the opportunity to give it a chance and we did.”
In addition to performing throughout the summer months Boydell has experienced some standout highlights throughout her time with the Cowgirls.
Last year she performed in Ricoh Coliseum during the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto.
“I grew up just outside of Toronto so I watched my idols ride there and the view from inside that ring is unbeatable, to a packed crowd,” she said.
Another highlight was riding through the Gettysburg battlefields with Sysco.
“We were down in Pennsylvania for a performance … so we booked a trail ride … and had a guided history lesson through Gettysburg,” she said.
“So once you’ve done that you’re like what could even come next?”
Boydell says she’s very careful of the way she works and trains Sysco because the horse wears so many different hats. For example, he has different tack for each riding discipline.
“If I’m in my jumper tack I would never ask him for dressage movements,” she explained. “When I’m in my dressage saddle I would never ask him to go over a fence.
“I try to keep everything very separate to keep his mind separated.”
Because of Boydell’s varied riding experience she likes being a part of the Canadian Cowgirls and sharing her knowledge – as well as gaining knowledge from her teammates.
“They have a different style of riding than I do and I’ve been able to pick up things from there that have made me a better rider not only in the Cowgirls but in the jumper ring.
“Everyone’s got something to teach you, you just have to go out and learn it.”
The Canadian Cowgirls will be at the Fergus Fall Fair at the Centre Wellington Community Sportsplex on Sept. 17 at noon and Sept. 18 at 10am. Admission to the show is included in general fair admission.
“It’s a beautiful show,” Boydell said. “We want a big crowd to cheer us on and we cheer with you and this is what we love to do and we want to share it with as many people as we can.
“We all have jobs, we all work hard so we can do this on weekends and travel and show this amazing act.”
