Submitted
This is a special year for one of North America’s most renowned barrel racers.
Ponoka’s Dee Butterfield marks 40 years of holding clinics and sharing her experience and expertise in horsemanship with students around the world. To mark the occasion, Butterfield is hosting a special reunion event this summer.
Butterfield has built a legendary reputation in the arena, in competition, through instruction, and by raising winners in her horse breeding program.
The talented horsewoman earned a Canadian barrel racing championship in 1992, in her 10th year of qualifying for Canadian professional rodeo’s season end showdown. She was one of the first Canadian barrel racers to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo, in 1975. She’s earned numerous other association championships and futurity titles over four decades of competition.
It became clear early on to this B.C. raised cowgirl that she enjoyed training horses and sharing her insights with others. Having trained all her own horses from a young age, Butterfield developed a knowledge that is unsurpassed in the sport. Her expertise ranges from breeding and raising barrel prospects through to the highest level of competition.
“I was 18 when I started doing clinics,” recalled Butterfield. “I was having a lot of success at rodeos, and the other barrel racers wanted to know what I was doing. In those days there weren’t a lot of clinics.”
“I’ve always had a passion to teach, even when I was young.”
She smiles as she recalls even teaching her younger sisters at home growing up.
“Both of them ended up on the honor roll,” Butterfield said proudly. “But my brothers were a little harder to get on the program!”
Butterfield’s first barrel racing clinic was held at a little place called Anaham Lake in B.C., a place she describes as ‘back in the bush.’
“There were 10 or 12 students, and they passed the hat for me.”
That was a lifetime of clinics ago. Butterfield estimates she’s had close to 5,000 students over the years. She’s held clinics in Hawaii and Australia and has helped many a barrel racer along the way to their own championships. Previous students have included 2008 World Barrel Racing Champion Lindsay Sears, two-time Calgary Stampede winner Jill Besplug and her great horse Chick, and newly crowned Canadian Barrel Racing Champion Gaylene Buff.
Butterfield’s clinics have drawn a wide range of students, as old as 65 and as young as four years old. Two-time world champion saddle bronc rider Mel Hyland even took a clinic, as he launched his own horse training career.
“Coleen Duggan went to my very first clinic, and she’s still rodeoing in both the pros and amateurs,” commented Butterfield.
With such a wide range of interesting participants, it’s no wonder the Ponoka cowgirl is looking forward to this summer’s Dee Butterfield Alumni Classic 40th anniversary event. She’s hoping it will be a great reunion of her students from over the years.
“The lady who organized my first clinic is even coming.”
The first-time event in Canada will be a 5D barrel racing competition, open to all past students of a Dee Butterfield clinic, with a minimum $10,000 total purse. Enthusiasm is already starting to build for the 40th anniversary Alumni Classic, to be held at the Ponoka Stampede Grounds July 8 to 10. Entries close at the end of April, and there are still sponsorship opportunities available.
“I really want it to be a lot of fun for those racing, and even for those who aren’t,” said Butterfield. So along with the barrel racing, there will be a wine and cheese social, a pancake breakfast, a barbecue, and all kinds of awards and prizes for participants.
Career highlights for Dee Butterfield:
• Canadian Pro Rodeo Woman of the Year in 1975
• past president of the Alberta Barrel Racing Association
• five years as barrel racing director for the Canadian Girls Rodeo Association
• first barrel racing representative for the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association
• instrumental in passing the rule requiring barrel racing to have equal prize money to the five major rodeo events at professional rodeos in Canada
• member of the Horse Industry Association Association of Alberta
• past board member of the Alberta Quarter Horse Breeders Group
• 25 year member/breeder in AQHA
• 2006 Recipient of the Bill Kehler Award at the Ponoka Stampede
• has co-ordinated opening ceremonies for the Ponoka Stampede for more than 20 years
• four years on the board of the Alberta High School Rodeo Finals
• husband Craig is a niine-time Canadian Finals Rodeo steer wrestling qualifier
• daughter Brook Robertson was Miss Rodeo Canada in 1998
• son Chance Butterfield finished 14th in Canadian pro rodeo steer wrestling standings in 2009