Paws Renews Omak Suicide Race Fight

Despite the efforts of animal-rights activists, the Omak Stampede's famed Suicide Race appears to be on schedule for the second weekend in August.

The Lynnwood-based Progressive Animal Welfare Society sent out press notices this week announcing that six corporate sponsors had withdrawn their support for the race but not for the rodeo. PAWS has long denounced the race as cruel to horses.

Organizers of the Stampede rodeo, however, say no sponsors have been lost.

"We felt any contribution was underwriting of the event," said Will Anderson, the campaign coordinator for PAWS. He said he considered the companies' unwillingness to be associated with the race to be a withdrawal of sponsorship.

In this annual race, up to 20 horses and riders plunge down a 200-foot hill, swim across the Okanogan River and sprint to the finish line.

PAWS calls it the deadliest horse race in the United States. Nine horses have died in conjunction with the race over the past 10 years.

The group has sent videotapes of the race and protest letters to various corporations. Now PAWS says that Wrangler Inc., Cellular One, Sears, Pizza Hut, U.S. Bank and Wal-Mart have withdrawn their support for the race.

Major sponsors are classified as those who donate $1,000 or more, said Jan Canfield, office manager for Omak Stampede Inc. Sponsors pay for about $13,000 of the rodeo's total $330,000 budget, she said.

Out of the six companies named by PAWS, only Wrangler, Cellular One and U.S. Bank are major sponsors, Canfield said.

All three companies say they are sponsors of the Stampede, not of the Suicide Race.

Rich Lingel, general manager of the Wenatchee Cellular One, which started sponsoring the Stampede last year, says it was his understanding that the rodeo and race are separate. "We always specified that we're not sponsoring the Suicide Race."

Wrangler Inc., which sponsors about 800 rodeos across the nation, and U.S. Bank, which sponsors a chute at the Stampede, intend to specify that their contributions not be used for the Suicide Race, company representatives said.

While these companies have never been specifically Suicide Race sponsors, the money they have contributed has typically gone to sponsor the Stampede as a whole - including the race, Canfield said.

"I just put it in the same checking account," she said, explaining it's difficult to track each company's contribution unless the company specifies what it wishes to sponsor or not sponsor.

In the past, PAWS has failed in court to stop the race.

Stampede organizers say the publicity will only attract more spectators.

"I don't have any fears of it affecting us at all," Canfield said. "The bigger the noise they make, the more tickets we sell."