Kevin Kimballl had only been on skis three times before Saturday morning. For his fourth, the Westbrook man was again pulled behind a speeding horse, hanging onto a rope and trying to collect rings suspended along a snowy track as crowds cheered.
“Oh, it’s awesome,” he said, comparing the experience to waterskiing. “You go faster than you think you’re going to go, and you have more control than you think you will, too.”
Kimball wasn’t the only competitor at Skijor Bangor who had little experience with the growing extreme winter sport. There are only two other events in Maine and, with the sport still being new here and the track setup is so specific, it’s hard to find anywhere to practice. But that didn’t stop him or 43 other teams from signing up to compete in single digit temperatures at the Hollywood Casino Raceway.
In skijoring, which originates in Norway, teams comprised of a horse, rider and a skier race along 1,000 feet of track, with optional jumps, in a timed competition that also involves collecting the hanging rings. Novice and pro teams all compete; each has the chance to run twice.
Some pairs wear costumes – Kimball and his partner, Caitlin Rice, had American flag jumpsuits with matching red white and blue shoes on her horse – and audience members cheer and shake cowbells. The more noise, the better, according to the event’s website.
“It’s very exciting. It’s exhilarating,” organizer Jodi MacGregor said. “When you take two fairly extreme sports and put them into one, I think it doubles the fun.”
MacGregor herself has never skijored – it’s a young person’s sport, she said – but she loves to watch it, getting hooked immediately after seeing a competition in Skowhegan. Numerous other competitors Saturday said they were first exposed to skijoring there.
Maine’s first formal skijoring event was held in Skowhegan in 2019 as part of an economic development effort. It was popular out west, and organizers figured Maine also had enough snow, horses and daredevils for the sport to take off here, according to Down East magazine.
Skijoring has since spread to other events in Topsham in 2022 and Bangor in 2024.
The Bangor event was on hold last year, but with its return, so has the chance for competitors to win a “triple crown” among the three Maine races.
MacGregor puts the event together with a team of about 45 volunteers, many of them childhood friends and neighbors from her youth in the surrounding Bass Park neighborhood. In the days leading up to the event, they used five dump trucks of clean snow from the Bangor International Airport to prepare the track and create jumps for skiers.
Often, the pairs have never practiced before – and sometimes never met – before competition day, having found each other online, according to MacGregor. She sees many more interested skiers than available riders. On the competitive level, skiers typically look for a fast rider and riders want a good skier who’s a little daring.
But others race just for fun, excited for something to do with their horses in the winter. Jay and Petra Brunjes came to Bangor to skijor for the second time ever on Saturday, and said getting outside in the cold months is a draw for them. The horses enjoy it too, Jay Brunjes said – he can see it in their attitude, their faces and their eyes. They don’t need any coaxing to run.
Marissa Lussier, Katie Okolita and Emily Batt, who came to Bangor from the Portland area, were also fairly new to the sport.
Okolita said she’s always done unusual things with her horses, and had fun training her horse, Asimov, for the particular demands of skijoring.
“They’re prey animals, and you’re literally putting something behind them, chasing them,” she said.
She worked slowly to get him used to it, and he was now ready to tow Batt behind him.
Batt said she hopes skijoring will stay around for a long time – they need something to look forward to every winter.
Skijoring events will be held in Topsham on Feb. 7 and Skowhegan on Feb. 21.
