Tracey Ball (Miss Ruby Redsmoke) keeps the NZ flag flying high in Western Cowboy Shooting matches in the USA
By Steve Plowman, Editor, Police News
Tracey Ball (aka Ruby Redsmoke) a former Council of Sport Sportsperson of the Year, an award that acknowledged her international success at Western Cowboy shooting, recently toured the USA, competing at various competitions.
Tracey joked to Police News that while waiting for the flight out to the States she was “holding her breath” when the firearms residue test was being done.
When Tracey arrived at Los Angeles airport there was even more drama when she discovered that a rifle with the exact same serial number as her shotgun had been reported stolen. After a brief explanation that her Baikal 12-guage shotgun could not in fact be a .370 rifle she was duly sent on her way.
After an overnight stop in Denver, Tracey travelled to Powell, via Casper. For four hours solid she encountered torrential rain, crashing thunder and sustained lightning flashes.
First match
Half an hour’s drive from Powell is the town of Cody where the first match took place. The competition, known as The Wild West Shootout was hosted by the High Lonesome Drifters but it “wasn’t the best match” for the Australasian contingent, according to Tracey.
“It was great walking around Cody in our cowboy clothes, the best part was all the shopkeepers knew we were there for the shoot and even better they knew all about Cowboy Shooting and we didn’t have to keep explaining ourselves. The tourists didn’t know any better though and some thought we were a tourist attraction and asked for photos with us!” Tracey explained.
Although she had felt she had not had her best shoot, Tracey was surprised to find that she had shot well enough to secure sixth place overall and first female shooter while also taking out the Lady B-Western competition. One hundred and forty-one (141) shooters took part (Full Results).
In the side events (men and women combined), Tracey finished third in the Speed Shotgun and second in the Speed Pistol events respectively.
Tour
A tour of Cody followed, with visits to the Buffalo Bill Historical Centre and a night rodeo and an overnight stay at the Western Six Gun Motel.
The next match was in Cortez, Colorado where ‘Ruby’ said she was “pleased to be back for the Revenge of Montezuma, as the competition is known. “We were made very welcome again by the Windygap Regulators,” she said. At this match the organisers take particular care to display the national flag of each competitor and every year competitors sign not an attendance book but an attendance wall.
Tracey won the Speed Rifle match and another interesting side event called “Hells Revenge”. The latter event featured small swinging targets – the Texas star for the pistol shoot with the Texas star and static targets for the rifle match plus knock down shotgun targets. Tracey also won the Lady B-Western grade again, was first female and seventh overall. “There were 88 shooters including 18 Aussies and me. We had such a great time,” she told Police News (Full Results).
Special shooter
Then it was on to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the SASS 28th Annual Cowboy Action Shooting World Championships.
Tracey said that what made this competition so special was the presence of a disabled deaf mute shooter named “Pecos Jane”, who never let her wheelchair-bound status prevent her from competing on even terms with her able-bodied counterparts. “She was bloody amazing,” Tracey said frankly.
“Jane shot every single stage the same as the rest of us. We kept trying to make it easier for her but she wouldn’t have a bar of it. One stage consisted of climbing a flight of stairs and shooting the whole stage on the balcony. We told Jane she could shoot it from the ground…in answer to this she rolled her wheelchair to the stairs, hauled herself on to them and climbed them on her bottom, pulling her legs up by hand on every stair. We took her wheelchair up there and she shot on the balcony the same as everyone else,” Tracey said.
Determination personified
“There was another stage where we start sitting on a horse on an ‘exploding’ bridge, which fell away a very small distance underneath us when we started. They told Jane we could move the horse out and she could shoot the stage in her wheelchair. No way was she having that! She dragged herself on to the horse and shot it the same as everyone else again.”
Tracey said it was a “real eye-opener” for all the competitors and made them “very appreciative of what we have.” “It was an experience I will never forget,” she added.
At the end of the Albuquerque match Tracey won the Ladies B Western World Championship and was 40th overall amongst 419 shooters (Full Results).
The spectre of 9/11
Tracey said the spectre of 9/11 hangs heavily over airport security in the United States. She said getting her guns out of Denver was a “nightmare”. It took three hours to get all the legal technicalities of transporting four firearms (the limit of United Airlines is two per locked case) sorted out to airline officials’ satisfaction. “It was very lucky we got to the airport so early,” Tracey mused.
“Still it hasn’t put me off travelling with firearms permanently. I have time to forget about it until we head off for Chisholm Trail in Australia at the end of this month,” she added.
Tracey tells her story in the attachment below.