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GUNSMOKE COWBOY MOUNTED SHOOTING ASSOCIATION BRINGS THE WILD WEST TO THE WORLD SHOW. BY BECKY NEWELL, AQHA MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR If the photos for this article are blurry, it's not my fault. OK, well, maybe it is my fault for being a bit skittish, but every time I focused on the rider, he or she shot a gun and ... it was loud! And I jumped. As a result, quite a few of my pictures from the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association demonstration on November 7 at the AQHA World Championship Show weren't useable. So, why were they shooting guns at the World Show? Let me back up a little bit. At AQHA's invitation, 10 CMSA members came to the World Show to demonstrate the sport of mounted shooting. Much like rodeo's beginnings in actual ranch work, cowboy mounted shooting has its roots in exercises used by the cavalry to improve soldiers' horseback shooting skills. With more than 10,000 members in North America and Europe, CMSA is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world, according to CMSA Spokesperson Annie Bianco-Ellett, aka "Outlaw Annie." So AQHA hosted a "shoot-off" – dubbed the Red Dirt Duel – between five men and five women who rode their horses through a cloverleaf pattern, using blank ammunition to shoot balloons that were attached to the poles and barrels that formed the course. They were accompanied by Annie, who travels the country competing and offering mounted-shooting seminars. At 22 years of age, Annie's American Quarter Horse stallion, El Costa Prom, is the winningest horse in the sport of mounted shooting. Watch the video to learn more about the two riders – Laura Parmentier of Union, Missouri, and Bobby Ruwe of Harrison, Ohio, – who won the Red Dirt Duel.
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