PENDLETON — He careened around the bend, dismounted his horse and, in a blink, leaped spread eagle onto his final horse, Thunder.

It was during this very exchange on Wednesday, Sept. 15, his team was disqualified after his hand got caught in the reins during the dismount, pulling his horse over the inside rail and nearly ripping his bloody fingers off.

Now, a day later, his team lifted him up for the final lap.

He sped past other teams fumbling over the exchange under the gaze of thousands of spectators. For much of the race, they lagged in third place, but he flew around the first turn and into the lead. Thunder galloped hard, a blur down the back straightaway. The rider’s hair whipped in the wind. His competitors were right on his heels.

He hugged the final bend and headed down the straightaway. It’s over for the others. He looked toward his team — Cayuse Express — and held up the finger signaling victory. Andrew Whiteman of Nespelem, Washington, screamed as a thunderous roar erupted from the Pendleton Round-Up grandstands.

Some call it North America’s original extreme sport.

For Pendleton Round-Up attendees, the Indian Relay Race has become one of the most popular and exhilarating events during the week-long rodeo. For the competitors, the race symbolizes many things: a pure adrenaline rush; a way to connect with family and their culture; a way to bond with the horses that almost all of them grew up riding.

“We’re thankful for the horse,” said Dallas Dubray, from Browning, Montana, of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. “It’s a powerful animal. It’s sacred. It took care of us for generations.”

Dubray competes with Carlson Relay, one of the many teams that traveled from far and wide to make this year’s races the most competitive yet. Several former champions were part of the lineup, including Johnathan Abrahamson, who estimated he’s won the Round-Up more than a dozen times.

“Us Natives hold our horses because of competition and culture,” said Chazz Racine, of Carlson Relay, the 2019 Round-Up relay champion.

But walking through the small lot where teams camp between races, it isn’t immediately obvious these teams are some of the fastest in the circuit.

The racers lounge on foldable chairs near their trailers. Some smoke and chew tobacco. They feed and tend to their horses while listening to a mixture of Native songs and AC/DC. Tents line the roads and small dogs scamper about. A few of them stuff sage into their boots and say prayers for safety and “to be connected with the earth,” said Slew Costel of Carlson Relay.

“Lots of us, we grew up doing it, riding horses,” said Casey Nissen, the leader of Cayuse Express. “It kept us out of mischief.”

Nissen is from Omak, Washington, on the Colville Reservation. He is a thinly muscular man with the massive hands of one who has tussled with many large animals. For 40 years, he was a bullfighter and also competed in saddle bronc. At 62, he has seven children, and hopes to start bullfighting again soon, perhaps when he retires from racing.

Nissen works as a contractor on the reservation and, in his spare time, runs a nonprofit program where he brings young people, people who struggle with substance abuse and incarcerated people out to train wild horses.

“They know this horse has hardly been handled, and the reward they get for achieving each step along the way is amazing,” Nissen said. “Our program is so badass. We establish communication, open the soul of a person. It’s crazy, all it can do, because we have the soul of that horse that’s helping us.”

Nissen, like many of the other competitors, sees his horses as much more than just a way to race. So when he trains wild horses with students, he does so using a method involving what he calls a “magic wand.”

Instead of running the horse into the ground and fatiguing them, like others do, they wave a stick with a noisy gadget on the end in front of the horse to direct them. It’s a method requiring great patience, he said, and it’s meant to convince the horse they are a good leader. It’s also meant to teach people self-esteem, confidence and long-term gratification, something Nissen finds essential in today’s digital age.

“We’ve had over 1,000 students now without one ambulance run, and it’s all because this is so successful,” he said. “They think, ‘Man, you’re a badass leader. You’re smarter than me. You’re more athletic.’ Then, when you take off walking they come with you. You stop, they stop. You run, they run. Just like they do with their leader in the herd. It’s unbelievable.”

Dubray, from the Blackfeet Reservation, said his horses are strong because they do much more than just race. From their home at the foothills of Glacier National Park’s towering peaks, they ride for miles, herding cattle and buffalo and hunting moose, elk and deer.

“It takes their mind off racing,” said Dubray. “They have more than one job.”

Each of the riders said riding horses from a young age was how they got into racing.

“It’s in our blood,” Nissen said.

To them, racing provides an opportunity to bond with their horse and their families. And as the sport is growing larger and more competitive, they expect events like the Round-Up relays to follow suit.