Brief by Central Staff
Pack-burro racing – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Pack-burro racing is one of the more obscure sports, but on the other hand, it’s the only sport indigenous to Central Colorado.
This year’s season starts with two races in the Cripple Creek District as part of the annual Donkey Derby Days Festival that celebrates, among other things, the small herd of feral burros which wanders around the World’s Greatest Gold Camp.
On June 29, there’s a four-mile “Brass Ass Amateur Race” for novices. We don’t know the start time, but we suspect it will happen sometime after 8 a.m., when Cripple Creek will dedicate a life-sized bronze statue of a donkey.
The 10-mile pro race will start in Victor at noon on June 30, and the first runners will be arriving on Cripple Creek’s Bennett Avenue about two hours later — our own Hal Walter among them, we trust.
Other scheduled races this summer are the Mentor Race (for new runners to learn the ropes) on July 6 in Leadville; a short race July 27 in Golden; the first leg of the Triple Crown from Fairplay to Mosquito Pass and back on July 28; the second leg from Leadville to the Pass and return on Aug. 4; the final triple-crown leg in Buena Vista on Aug. 12; and a season finale in Idaho Springs sometime in September.