were prominent in the Southwestern United States. In mounted races, competitors used sharpened stakes to spear potatoes and bring them from one end of a course to another. These races were timed, and the racer whose basket was heaviest at the end was the winner. One less common variation bore some similarities to the blood sport of rooster pulling, but used potatoes rather than partially-buried roosters. A line of potatoes was spaced out along a course, and a rider would ride by at a loping pace, leaning down from their horse and snatching the potatoes from the ground. Riders who failed to maintain speed, or missed a potato, would be disqualified. The fastest remaining rider was the winner. Mounted potato races have been staged with participants riding on vehicles rather than horses. The British Almanac of 1897 mentions a bicycle-mounted potato race in an article describing bicycle gymkhana. A large picnic in Radford, England, in 1908 featured a bicycle potato race whose riders were young women. It was described at the time as a "splendid exhibition". In 1910, 5,000 spectators at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway watched a sort of reverse potato race where passengers in cars tried to throw potatoes from the vehicle into baskets placed along a track. American Motorcyclist magazine reported that the First Annual Motorcycle Rodeo, held in 1970, featured a potato race with riders mounted on motorcycles. Team-based tournament Around the turn of the 20th century some mounted potato races were run as competitions between teams attempting to fill a basket with potatoes. These events were not so much ordered races as they were free-for-alls, which could last as long as ten minutes. They were notably chaotic, as riders were not confined to lanes, and the rules permitted competitors to use their stakes to knock potatoes off the stakes of the other teams. Physical violence often ensued; the autobiography of cowboy Harry Arthur Gant describes one team race at a Frontier Days event in 1909 that became so violent that the judges were forced to halt the competition in the middle. The Courier-Journal noted that violent tactics such as pulling riders off their horses were considered acceptable, and that "biting is about the only thing that is barred." Writing in Plains Folk, James Hoy remarked upon the similarity of these races to the Central Asian sport of buzkashi, which also involves fiercely competitive riders attempting to