Cowboy Mounted Shooting National Championships Tunica Arena, April 14-17 By Ken Amorosano The Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association (CMSA) brought its National Championship to the Tunica Arena & Exposition Center April 14-17, 2010. Sponsored by Jeffers Equine, the four-day event pitted the nation’s best mounted shooting competitors against each other to vie for the National Championship title. The competition started Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. and continued 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. daily through Saturday. The highlight of the competition was the Starline Saturday Night Showcase professional series that brought the Nation’s top ten professional competitors together to determine the CMSA's top horse and rider. The Saturday event included the Cavalry Class finals, Rifle Class finals and the Colt Eliminator finals. Cowboy Mounted Shooting is one of the fastest growing equestrian sports in the nation. The object of the sport is to shoot ten balloon targets while riding through a variety of challenging courses using specially-loaded blank cartridges fired from Old West-style single-action revolvers. It’s a high-speed, timed spectator sport in which the competitor who rides the fastest with the least amount of missed targets wins. The CMSA’s Championship Series competitors rode as part of 'TeamDuke,' on behalf of the John Wayne Cancer Foundation to raise awareness of their fight to cure cancer. The Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association is the governing organization of the sport and promulgates the rules and tracks the competitors of more than 100 affiliated clubs. To learn more about the CMSA visit www.cowboymountedshooting.com.