The Stampede owns Grated Coconut, the five-time bareback horse of the year that made quick work of three-time world champion Will Lowe of Canyon in December at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.
They're big, stalwart horses with toward-the-moon kicks that can throw a cowboy into the next county.
"Our horses will give guys an honest shot to win money," said Keith Marrington, senior manager responsible for rodeo with the Calgary Stampede. "If you come play, the horses will do their job."
The Alberta bucking horses are so highly regarded that they were on the card at the two biggest Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association shows in Texas: the San Antonio Stock Show Rodeo in February and RodeoHouston in March. They also were contracted for the National Western Stock Show Rodeo in Denver in January.
"The horses up here have a little more size and a little more buck to them," said two-time NFR bareback riding qualifier Kyle Bowers, who lives in Alberta.
In a telephone interview, Lowe said the Canadian horses, owned by firms such as the Calgary Stampede and the Kesler family, are at the top of industry.
"If you have a Calgary horse, you know you have as good of a shot as anybody to win," Lowe said.
Winston Bruce, the 1961 world saddle bronc riding champion from Calgary, said the Canadian horses are a tough match because "they're bigger and stronger and have a lot of will to win and to live" in tougher surroundings.
The Calgary Stampede's renowned stock contracting firm has a farm system for bringing up bucking horses. In March, I witnessed some of the process by attending a bucking stock riding jackpot in a indoor arena in the small, frigid Alberta community of Brooks, about two hours southeast of Calgary.
The event was made up of 4-year-old broncs making their maiden voyage in rodeo competition. Three months earlier, the green broncs had taken on dummy riders.
The young buckers -- with names such as Rapper Margie, Rum Flavored, Redon Acres or Ruthless Terry -- were impressive. In fact, Rapper Margie, a dark brown filly, was the star of the night and threw off Dustin Thompson, a five-time Canadian finalist. Thompson would have received a score of 23-plus points from each judge had he stayed on. And that means if the cowboy had ridden and spurred the horse correctly throughout an eight-second bout, Thompson would have been scored in the elite 90s.
Rapper Margie was sired by Grated Coconut, who won a record-tying fifth PRCA bareback title in 2008. She's an embryo transplant out of a tough Calgary bronc named Erotic Margie.
However, it may be four years of going through the ranks before the promising youngster appears in San Antonio or Houston, Marrington said.
Instead, he'll first appear in lower-profile competitions such as the traditional rookie bronc riding competition at the Calgary Stampede's pro rodeo July 3-12 in Calgary. From there, he can work his way up into pro rodeo's major leagues.
After the jackpot in Brooks, the horses were transported back to the Calgary Stampede Ranch, a spread of more than 20,000 acres near Hanna, Alberta. At the ranch, all of the rodeo broncs, including Grated Coconut, have massive pastures to roam and lots of time off from traveling.
That could contribute to these bronc's success. It takes a tough customer to survive the hard winters, not to mention the long walks for water, Marrington said. At the same time, their nutritional and medical care is closely monitored.
"Our maintenance on our horses is like the maintenance on your truck," Marrington said.