There are plenty of horse sports hitting the ring at the 2026 Royal Manitoba Winter Fair (RMWF), but barrel racing isn’t one of them.
The rodeo event was on the schedule leading up to the week-long fair in Brandon, but was pulled at the last minute by the sport’s sanctioning body, the Canadian Cowboys Association (CCA), fair officials said.
In an April 1 release, the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba (the organizing force behind the RMWF), said the association’s decision was “due to external requirements that could not be met within the necessary timelines.”
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Clarke Swain, exhibition vice-president and horse show chair, said the issue centred on proof of vaccine requirements.
WHY IT MATTERS: Biosecurity, disease testing and proof of vaccination have all tightened around horse sporting events due to concern around disease transmission and the frequency of horse travel to these events.
The RMWF’s proof of vaccination form, shared with the Co-operator, requires a horse arriving at the fair to be “enrolled in a regular and consistent program” vaccinating against equine herpesviruses one and four and equine influenza, “with the most recent booster being within six (6) months (+21 days grace period) but not 7 days prior to arrival of the competition start date.”
Swain said there was confusion on what that timeline meant, and miscommunication about what was needed between the exhibition and the Canadian Cowboys Association.
“[Participants] automatically thought that as long as it wasn’t within the seven days, that they could come,” Swain said.
But the exhibition follows Equestrian Canada (EC) rules, due to the number of hunter-jumpers at the show, Swain said, and the actual requirement is that vaccination must be done 21 days out from the event. Information packages for both the fair’s hunter-jumper class and pole bending class (which is not sanctioned by EC), says vaccines must be current within six months and given no earlier than three weeks out from the show.
The exhibition was notified March 29, a day before competition, that some of the incoming participants didn’t meet the vaccine requirements, Swain said. He added that he got notice from the cowboy’s association that the event was cancelled late that day.
“While we were trying to figure out, is it seven days that we need it, or is it 21 … CCA made a decision just to cancel [the barrel racing],” Swain said. “They informed us that they had cancelled it, emailed all the competitors, then it was cancelled. They posted it cancelled while we were still working in the background to figure it out.”
The Canadian Cowboys Association did not respond to requests for comment as of press time. The organization’s 2025 bylaws and rodeo rules do not mention vaccine reporting rules.
Conflicting interpretations
When reached for clarification on the rules, a spokesperson for Equestrian Canada said “Equestrian Canada can confirm that the EC competition portion of the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair is fully compliant with the EC vaccination rules and is running with no cancellations. If there are other activities at the fair that require vaccinations, that is outside of our jurisdiction and we can not make comment.”
Guidance published by Equestrian Canada states that, as of 2020, “horses competing in competitions should receive a booster for Equine Influenza and Equine Herpes Virus within six (6) months +21 days before arrival at an event.”
In addition, the national organization says, no vaccine should have been administered within a week of arrival.
The provincial exhibition typically requires proof of vaccination by a certain date a few weeks out from the event so that they can review the paperwork, Swain said. Many entrants missed that date.
After news broke of the cancellation, Swain said they toyed with the idea of running an unsanctioned event for those who had already arrived and who did pass the bar on vaccines, “but we just thought it wasn’t fair to the people that had put the work into coming here for us to run anybody at that point.”
Competitors left scrambling
Would-be competitors took to social media to express their disappointment. Criticisms included the last-minute nature of the cancellation, given already booked accommodations, travel and time off work.
“Like many competitors, I spent months preparing my horse for this,” one account, attributed to the name Sandra Spencer, posted publicly on Facebook. “Time, money, and commitment all went into getting ready for this event —only to have it cancelled due to conflicting interpretations of a vaccination policy.”
Grady Stephenson says his daughter was set to compete in both barrel racing and pole bending. They stayed at the RMWF to compete in the latter after barrel races were called off.
Clear details have been hard to come by, he noted.
“With checking with CCA and checking with the provincial exhibition, everybody was kind of pointing the fingers at each other,” he said.
Coming from the Dauphin area, travel was less inconvenient for them than more far flung competitors, he noted, but “I think some that were coming from out of province were a little bit upset that things changes and when they changed.”
Fixing for next year
The provincial exhibition is talking about how to avoid similar pitfalls next year, Swain said.
The exhibition will be reviewing their vaccine requirements into a standardized policy, plans to send information out earlier and will likely move up the deadline to submit proof of vaccine.
“We understand how important this event is to our exhibitors, participants, and fans, and we sincerely apologize for the disappointment this has caused,” the exhibition’s April 1 release read. “Please know that our team explored every possible option to move forward with the event and worked closely with partners and exhibitors to try and find a solution.”
