National Western Stock Show Kick-Off Parade

Let's take a break from all things Christmassy and Wintry and take a look at an annual even that happens every January right in the heart of Denver. I'm talking about the National Western Stock Show and it's kick-off parade.

Every January Denver celebrates Colorado's cowboy culture with 16 days of stock shows, rodeos, horse riding events, bull riding, and animal shows, and it all kicks off with a parade through Downtown Denver.

The highlight of the parade, which starts at Denver's Union Station and continues down 17th Street, is the longhorn cattle. Seeing these majestic bovines walk through the city is a pretty amazing sight. They really do have long horns! Long and pointy horns! You don't want to be getting in the way of these guys! Luckily, the longhorns are escorted (and surrounded) by wranglers on horseback, so the crowd is kept safe. 

The longhorns are followed by various equestrian groups, rodeo groups, marching bands, horse drawn carriages, vintage vehicles, more cattle, and lots of cowboys and cowgirls of all ages. So many horses - and so much horse poo all over the road! Good thing there were street sweepers following up the tail of the parade!

Let's take a look at the parade. I hope you like horses because there are a LOT of horses coming up!

So many horses, right?

The parade takes about an hour to make its way down 17th Street to Tremont Place before heading back up 15th Street toward the Union Station. Once the parade was done I headed over to 15th Street and caught a few of the final parade groups again as they made their way back. Look at those little ponies! Aren't they adorable? It was rather interesting seeing the parade make its way back up 15th Street. As this wasn't an official part of the parade the street wasn't completely closed to traffic. This meant that there were cars driving in one lane and the horses etc in the other while police directed traffic at intersections.

The National Western Stock Show runs through January 26th with various shows throughout that time. We're planning on visiting the stock show this weekend and we have tickets for the Xtreme Dogs show later this month. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun!

For more information and to buy tickets for events visit https://nationalwestern.com/