Teams from Kalispell, Dillon and Lewistown, along with the hometown Mountettes competed over the weekend for bragging rights and the chance to carry the flag of the champion drill team in the state for the next year. A flag is given to the top team to carry in parades and drills. This year, just like last year, the Bitterroot Mountettes will carry that flag. They finished in first place with a strong showing in the impromptu portion of the two-day event.
Although the Mountettes have been performing for almost 40 years, each year is different. Drill members come and go and so a new dynamic is in place almost every year. There are a few drill members that have been in the group for many years. Colette Maxwell has been with the group for 37 years and performing for 36 years. Robin Olbert Bolin began riding with the Mountettes when she was 15 and aside from a couple of years off when she had babies, she’s been there every since, about 26 years. Rhonda Twadorski and Judy Vernier have been involved for 17 or 18 years. This core group gives the team stability and knowledge but the newer members bring new vitality and energy.
This year, five new members joined. This bumped the number of riders to 12 for the drills. The new members have to pass a safety test before riding but after that, it’s all practice, fun and games. This group of ladies (and one gentleman – Tony Bruggerman) has a good time out there riding. Not all ride in the performance drills. There are some that provide support on the ground and in the practice arena. In addition to the long performance drills, there are ‘Quad’ drills that feature only four riders performing loops and crossovers, quadrilles and circles to a specific theme. This year, Bruggerman rode in one of the Quad drills.
The teams are judged on specific maneuvers, all ideally performed at a high lope. These include herringbone type weaving with the horses weaving in and out between each other without running into one another. They move effortlessly from single rows to pairs and triples before breaking back down into one line, and sometimes the lines are moving against one another. The object is to stay in line, not break gait, and be a unified group. These objectives are also the goal in the impromptu part of the competition as well as the Quads.
The impromptu part of the competition was held on Saturday. The teams drew the maneuvers they had to utilize and then applied them to a drill. The Mountettes were dressed as cave women and with the smoke in the air, it seemed as if they were straight out of prehistoric times. Saturday’s performances also included the short program, which is a drill of less than six minutes.
The music used by these teams varied from the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean to Steven Tyler and Fireball with a bit of cowboy music in between. The Ramblin’ Roses from Dillon were colorful in their teal shirts, white bridles and reins, and multi colored flags. The Trailblazers of Kalispell came out dressed in white shirts, skull bandanas and pirate garb and performed a slow, deliberate drill to the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. The Heartland Riders of Lewistown only had four riders but they put on a traditional show to western music. It was the Mountettes who came out rockin’ to Fireball and never slowed down.
The Quad competition in the afternoon wasn’t a part of the overall team scores but the competition was keen nonetheless. Not only did some of the teams dress up in wild costumes but so did their horses, wearing hats, table clothes and a couple were even dressed as the General Lee from Dukes of Hazard. The Zombies from the Mountettes had smears of what appeared to be blood on their horses and their costumes. With a bride and a groom, and a couple of teenagers, the quartet spun and twirled for four minutes. The Box Trolls from Dillon had the most difficult costumes to ride in, cardboard boxes. Another Mountette team featured huge boom boxes and rappers. There were jailbirds, more pirates, Native Americans, the Dukes of Hazard, and even a little ol’ lady from Pasadena (Maxwell) speeding on her little horse through the other grannies.
The Bitterroot Mountettes will give performances Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at the Bull-A-Rama, and the NRA rodeo of the Ravalli County Fair.