At Carousel Ranch’s annual “How the West was Won” Charity Shoot, competition is beside the point: The winner can expect a not-so-expensive trophy and the honor of the title, at least until next year.
What makes the clay shooting event so singular, held for the past several years at Moore N’ Moore Sporting Clays in Sylmar — aside from maxing out capacity again this year — is the once-a-year financial boost for Carousel Ranch. For decades, the ranch has run equestrian programs that support the wellbeing of kids and young adults with special needs.
Taylor Adachi, Carousel Ranch’s executive director, said 100 participants were at the charity shoot Friday.
“The money raised today through people who are buying mulligans, who are buying merch … buying auction items and teams, it all goes … back to our students,” Adachi said. “We say they’re playing with purpose.”
The event regularly raises tens of thousands of dollars each year, with prices for buying a five-person team starting at $2,000. That buy-in includes a lunch at mid-day courtesy of Wolf Creek, coffee courtesy of Starbucks, and sausage samples courtesy of Schreiner’s Fine Sausages.
“It’s just like a golf tournament, except with shotguns,” Adachi said.
The format of the event follows the golf-tournament style procession through a series of stations: This year, shooters moved through 15 different shooting set-ups, and at each station, the clays are shot into the air from different directions.
“On one of the stations, it might be rolling on the ground, (at) another station might come up from up high, so it kind of goes back and forth,” Adachi said.
Eric Stroh, advisory board member and co-founder of the event, added shooters use 12- and 20-guage shotguns, and that special-colored clays can count for more points, for the sake of variety.
But the format of the event is largely straightforward, Adachi said. Several participants agreed it was accessible to first-time shooters, while giving seasoned shooters plenty to do — with many of Friday’s shooters being regulars at the event for the past several years.
Some do, inevitably, get competitive, Adachi said, even if “playing with purpose” doesn’t necessarily mean “playing with skill.”
“A lot of these teams have come back year after year,” Adachi said. “There’s some teams that this year have bought a second team. They really love it. Some get really competitive.”
