Grand marshal Todd Helton didn’t need a parade to make him love Denver.
“I’ve been living here year-round for 12 years, so to me this is the place to be,” said the Colorado Rockies’ first baseman, as he sat in the shotgun seat atop a horse-drawn stagecoach, waiting for the start of today’s National Western Stock Show Kickoff Parade.
Peeking beneath the brim of his beige cowboy hat, the the five-time All-Star assessed being king of the cow show: “It’s pretty sweet.”
Baseball fans and near-perfect weather helped provide one of the largest turnouts in recent memories. Though no attendance records are kept, the solid line of fans three- to five-people deep along 17th Street from Union Station to the Brown Palace was a rarity.
Downtown workers and suburbanites also came for the Old West cattle drive, the rodeo queens, the antique trucks, the color guards and this year’s Citizens of the West, rancher and former state agriculture commissioner Tom Kourlis and his wife, Rebecca Love Kourlis, a former Colorado Supreme Court justice.
The parade promotes the stock show, Denver’s premiere tourism event that has attracted more than 600,000 visitors in each of the last 12 years. The show started Saturday and continues through Jan. 24 at the National Wester Complex at Brighton Boulevard and Interstate 70.
Helton was the big ticket Tuesday in one of the best-attended parades in recent memory.
When his Wells Fargo coach stopped that the 16th Street Mall, the crowd began to clap.
“Let’s win a World Series, Todd,” called out John Ward, 62. Helton tipped back his head quickly as if to acknowledge the request.
Ward was delighted but admitted, between chuckles, “I might not get another chance to tell him later.”
The cattle drive’s longhorns were not completely upstaged by the beefy slugger, however. Before the parade, a group of people gathered around Fred Balmer of Folsom, N.M. More precisely, curious city folks gathered around Bob, the 2,000-pound animal with the 7-foot spread of horns.
Balmer sat relaxed in the saddle atop Bob as though he was a steed.
“I don’t think he’s smarter than a horse,” Balmer said of Bob. “I know he’s smarter than horses.”
But when Bob gallops, it’s a rocky ride, he said. Balmer answered one question after another as parade time neared.
“How long do they live?” a woman asked.
“Depends on whether he kicks me,” Balmer joked in his cowboy drawl.
Ranch owner Stan Searle and ranch manager Gary Lake brought a herd of cowboys to manage the crowd-pleasing beasts they brought.
The longhorn herd is on display at the National Western Stock Show, where the cows will appear in the Great American Wild West Show at the Events Center at 5 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $14, but include general admission to the Stock Show.
The longhorns are one of more than 20 breeds of cattle at the stock show, which includes more than 15,000 head of livestock, from laying hens to llamas and rabbits to yaks.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
