May 8, 2012 - With one month to go until Canada’s Outdoor Equine Expo (COEE), activities are moving into high gear in preparation for the biggest year of this three-year event. Always looking to improve the offering each year, two of the Expo staff winged west last month to attend the Mane Event in Red Deer, Alberta.

"Western equestrian events are growing in popularity as Ontario riders realize the ease of conforming to Western disciplines," says Coral Defayette, the COEE Team Lead who attended The Mane Event with fellow team member, Amanda Macfarlane. "We wanted to see first-hand some of the different Western skills so we could better showcase them for attendees and demonstrate the range of options open to them and their horses."

The 2012 Canada’s Outdoor Equine Expo will be held June 8, 9 & 10 at the Iron Horse Equestrian Complex in Burlington, Ontario. Craig Cameron leads the list of Western clinicians with sessions on Reining and colt starting. Cameron, known as the original "Cowboy’s Clinician" from Bluff Dale, Texas and winner of the 2010 Road to the Horse, travels extensively all over North America teaching Western riders how to best train their horses. But he is best known as the founder of The Extreme Cowboy Race™.

"Craig’s Race was so popular with the audience at Canada’s Outdoor Equine Expo last year that we HAD to have a rerun in 2012," says Amanda Macfarlane. "Entries are flying in and last year’s participants are telling me that they are coming back with a vengeance to win this year’s title of Extreme Cowboy Champion. As you can see, it’s building to be a real barn-burner event again this year!" The Extreme Cowboy Race™ is for riders 18 years and older, but Cameron has agreed to host a first-ever junior version that will concentrate more on learning the best way to attack the course. It will be open to riders ages 13 to 17 years inclusive.

Also on the Western roster will be a session by the Ross Millar Group (RMG) "Build a Cowboy/Cowgirl School." RMG operates the RAM Rodeo Tour, Ultimate Rodeo Tour and the Royal Winter Fair Invitational Rodeo. In addition to using a mechanical bull to demonstrate proper techniques, their professional staff will outline the steps involved in learning about the safe acquisition of rodeo skills.

"We get questioned all the time - what skills are involved, what equipment is required, and IS IT SAFE?" says Ross. "This clinic is our opportunity to educate people about rodeo – emphasize the facts and dispel the fictions. It is our concern to ensure that kids understand the safest way to participate in our sport."

Rounding out the Western experience will be roping clinics run by the Ontario Rodeo Association and the Roping Association of Ontario. As the Calgary Stampede inches closer to its 100th anniversary this July, it is a little known fact that the start of the rodeo tradition back in 1869 actually centred around roping - not bucking broncs. The skills required to work on a cattle ranch were horsemanship and roping. The better you were – the better your bragging rights!

As a tribute to the Stampede tradition, these interactive roping clinics and demonstrations will start with learning to rope from a standing position and then, for the more rodeo savvy, roping a robotic steer pulled behind the horsepower of an ATV, while attendees witness the intricacies and fundamentals of Team, Tiedown and Breakaway Roping.

"Our aim is to expose horse-lovers to as many different disciplines and options as possible," adds Coral Defayette, "and that includes English, Western, heavy horses, driving, therapeutic riding, rodeo and the list goes on. This way, people involved with horses can challenge themselves with new ideas and different choices as a way of keeping their relationship with horses fresh and relevant."

Canada’s Outdoor Equine Expo will be held June 8, 9 & 10, 2012 at the Iron Horse Equestrian Complex in Burlington, Ontario. For more information, please visit www.EquineExpo.ca