Draper • A sound like thunder billows into the air, then the ground begins to vibrate. Seconds later, a brown-red blur of an animal streaks by, snorting with exertion and exhilaration, mud clods flying from its hooves.
Jossie Gagon clings like a flea to the horse’s back as they sprint up the steep trail at Dimple Dell Regional Park. Gagon and her 16-year-old quarter horse, Maisy, represent two-thirds of a team in the little-known sport of skijoring. And this year, they’re preparing to enter a new frontier — in more ways than one.
A group of Utahns is trying to shine a spotlight on the niche sport, in which a skier or snowboarder is pulled by a horse and rider through an obstacle course. This year, that entails launching an organized circuit — the $250,000 Pro Skijor Frontier Tour — which includes six stops in three states: Utah, Montana and Idaho. It is believed to be the first tour to cross into Utah. Eventually, organizers say they’d like to expand to the East Coast and overseas.
The ultimate goal, however, is to see skijoring included as a demonstration sport when Utah hosts the 2034 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
“It’s growing roots here in Utah, and it’s so beautiful on television,” said Chris Castallo, a tour organizer and former TV executive for such outlets as NBC and CBS. “So we fully expect the Olympic Committee to take a look at the sport as a whole.”
Curious Utahns, meanwhile, will have three chances over the next six weeks to check it out. The Pro Skijor tour is scheduled to debut Friday and Saturday in Heber City. It will then make a stop in Logan on Jan. 30-31 before crowning its champions at the Utah State Fairpark in Salt Lake City on Feb. 28 and March 1. (A skijor exhibition will also be the centerpiece of Visit Salt Lake’s Winter Roundup in downtown Salt Lake City on Feb. 7).
Castallo warns, however, that anyone who takes a closer look at skijoring might become obsessed, just as he did.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Chris Castallo at Dimple Dell Regional Park, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.
He’d never heard of the sport before seeing a video of it on social media two years ago. When he attended an event in Heber City put on by Skijoring Utah — organized by the same duo, Joe Loveridge and Brian Gardner of Orem, who are now behind the Pro Skijor tour — he couldn’t look away.
“Once somebody sees it,” he said, “you can’t just help just go, like, ‘What is that?’ and want to go.”
Where skiing meets horsepower
Gagon calls Maisy her unicorn. In their lifetimes together, most of it spent in Bluffdale, she and the mare have competed in horse shows and gymkhanas, bareback skills events and barrel racing.
“She can do anything,” Gagon, 26, said.
So, when her then boss asked last year if Gagon and Maisy would pull her in the Skijoring Utah event in Logan last winter, the answer was, “Sure. Life’s short. Let’s just try new things.”
The race didn’t end well for Gagon’s boss, who got whiplash after landing straight-legged on a jump. Gagon, however, was hooked.
“I’m an adrenaline junkie,” she said. “So for an adrenaline junkie, like, this is it. This is the drug.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jossie Gagon with her horse Maisy, at Dimple Dell Regional Park, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.
Her primary partner on the Pro Skijor tour will be Bryan Coll, a professional beach wrestler from New York. He approached Gagon after she and Maisy impressed him with their speed at the Logan event. They will compete in the sport division — one of no fewer than five categories that also include beginner, pro and big air — and are sponsored by Happy Cow Vodka, which will pay for most of their touring expenses.
As the horse and rider, it’s Gagon and Maisy’s job to go fast and straight. It’s up to Coll to stay on his skis as he flies over jumps, cuts in and out of gates and collects plastic rings along the course. That’s all while holding onto a rope about 25 feet long that’s attached to Maisy’s saddle and dodging the ice and dirt clumps she might kick up.
“Winter’s my favorite time of the year. I love to ski,” said Coll, 28, who first took up skiing in 2022. “If I can compete professionally and make a living out of it, that’s great. … I’ve set myself up to be able to compete and give it a shot at winning.”
They haven’t competed together yet this season. Gagon said she hopes they’ll get at least one practice run before Friday’s first round. If they do well enough, and keep at it for another eight years — which isn’t out of the question given the age range of competitors — they could potentially compete in skijoring in the Olympics.
They wouldn’t be the first.
Reindeer games
When skijoring originated in Finland hundreds of years ago, according to Skijor International, it was out of necessity. Laplanders would strap on skis and harness their reindeer to pull them across the vast expanses of tundra. Predictably, those journeys turned to races, which continue to be held across Scandinavia and parts of Russia.
As the sport spread across Europe, though, reindeer were replaced by more ubiquitous horses. Often, they were fitted with a harness and ran without a rider.
By 1901, according to Skijor International founder Loren Zhimanskova, the sport had gained enough attention abroad to be included in the Nordic Winter Games in Stockholm. It was demonstrated at the first modern Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, France in 1924 — about a decade after it arrived in the United States — largely at the urging of Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Considered the father of the Olympics, de Coubertin was also a skijoring enthusiast. In fact, four years later in St. Moritz, Switzerland, skijoring was again named a Winter Olympics exhibition sport.
Skijoring was not officially on the Olympic program at either event, Zhimanskova said, nor were medals awarded. And while she calls herself the sport’s No. 1 fan, she cast doubt on skijoring becoming a medal sport in 2034.
“It wasn’t structured enough, even back then, or didn’t have enough of an international reach to justify that — and he was the head of the [Olympic Committee],” Zhimanskova said. “So it kind of puts things in perspective that way.”
Zhimanskova said skijoring faces many of the same obstacles now: It has no international governing body and no organized system for moving athletes between the regional, national and elite levels; besides, different continents have different rules and traditions. Plus, moving horses between states and countries can be difficult and costly.
(Pro Skijor Frontier Tour) Riverton's Jossie Gagon and her horse Maisy sprint down the track with skier Bryan Coll of New York in tow at a 2025 Skijoring Utah event. The trio will compete as team Vodka Vaqueros in the inaugural Pro Skijor Frontier Tour. The six-stop tour begins Friday in Heber City.
Eight years might be too little time to remedy those issues and position the sport as a medal event. But if Utah 2034 organizers want an exciting exhibition sport that’s fan friendly and showcases Utah’s spirit, Zhimanskova said skijoring is the perfect fit.
Pro Skijor tour organizers want their events to bolster the sport’s case. In addition to the excitement on the course, tour stops are promising concerts, shopping and food trucks.
“There’s nothing,” agreed Castallo, “more native in terms of sport than what skijoring has done the last five years in the state of Utah.”
Organizers of the 2034 Olympics haven’t yet begun discussing the competition program. President Brad Wilson said that process won’t begin for another couple years.
“There’s a long list of criteria that we will evaluate, and we haven’t created that list yet,” Wilson said. “But I can promise you that fan engagement will be part of it, whether or not it fits into our existing venues and maximizes their efficiency, will be part of it. Is it an emerging sport that balances men and women’s sports? I mean, all these things will be part of the criteria we use.
“And, I would say, ask me in about two and a half years what that criteria looks like, and we can start to talk about it.”
Despite that timeline, a few international organizations have begun suggesting potential new medal sports for the 2034 program. Among them are: synchronized figure skating, cyclocross, ski mountaineering and cross country running.
For Zhimanskova, none get the blood pumping and the nostrils flaring as much as skijoring.
“We’re a sport of three heartbeats,” she said. “It’s the teamwork between those three that is really unique, you know, and the fact that we bring together these two very disparate cultures, that’s very unique. And we need to really celebrate that.”