By Jeff Hunter ’96

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During the winter months, Azeri Coby can often be found out in the frigid cold and deep snow, launching off cliffs and traversing the steep backcountry of the Intermountain West on the back of a snowmobile with his daredevil friends and relatives.

But that feels like a very long way away on this early August day in Southeastern Idaho. 

It’s hot, dry, and dusty. The land at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation is so parched that from afar, a massive dust cloud created by a combine working its way across a nearby field is easy to mistake for smoke from a rangeland fire.

So, it goes without saying that on this scorching summer afternoon, Coby isn’t relying on a Ski-Doo with a 165-horsepower engine to propel him to where he wants to go. Instead, the senior at Utah State University is counting on a mere three horses to help return him to glory on his home track.

“It’s a relief, but I also feel a bit more stressed out than normal not knowing what’s going to happen,” Coby says, while carefully taping up his left knee and both ankles in a small compartment at the front of a horse trailer. “But I’m excited. I wasn’t even going to race this weekend, but then my doctor looked at the ultrasound of my knee and said, ‘Dude, you can race.’”

The 2025 national champion in the relatively obscure sport of Indian relay racing, Coby was sidelined for more than seven weeks by a knee injury suffered during one of the biggest races on the circuit, the Muckleshoot Gold Cup held at Emerald Downs south of Seattle. While he miraculously avoided a more serious injury while making contact with horses from another team during a particularly chaotic exchange, Coby was diagnosed with a sprained medial collateral ligament (MCL) in his left knee. Initially, the fear was that he would be out of action until the Indian Relay National Championship Races in early September at Blackfoot, Idaho.

But after being cleared to compete at the 61st annual Shoshone-Bannock Indian Festival on Wednesday, Aug. 5, Coby’s physician gave him strict guidance on how to protect his injured knee from suffering further damage during his first heat on Friday, Aug. 7. After first wrapping his leg with a layer of kinesiology tape, Coby ironically adds a layer of horse bandaging tape to protect his ankles and help keep his knee from “bending inwards.”

“I have to keep my knee wrapped at a 45-degree angle,” he explains. “So, when you see me walking, it definitely looks like I’m limping.”

But can he dismount from one horse and then run to another on practically just one working leg? As the jockey of an Indian relay team, Coby is required to switch horses as quickly as possible after each half-mile lap around a track. And since competitors ride bareback, there’s no stirrups to aid the transition to the back of a horse. That means sheer athleticism and the ability to time a literal leap of faith is of paramount importance. 

“I can still feel it, but only when making certain movements,” Coby insists. “But it’s not as painful as it used to be, so it’s ready.”

As he puts on the turquoise-colored vest of Teton Team — the relay squad founded by his grandparents, Clarence and Mary Teton more than four decades ago — Coby takes note of some fellow competitors walking nearby with their horses.

“Those guys are from Canada, dude. And they’re the team to beat right now,” Coby says of the Poitras Relay Team, which made the 1,000-mile, 15-hour trip from Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, to compete in Fort Hall. “Those guys are tough; that’s a good team. That’s the one that I got hit by there in Washington when I messed up my knee. But we’re all good. They’re really nice people.”

Coby won’t go up against Poitras and its TikTok-famous jockey “Jumping Joe” Jackson in his first race back, but he does expect to see the frequently bare-chested Jackson in the championship round. At this year’s festival, there are a total of 24 relay teams competing in four different heats on Friday and Saturday. The teams finishing with the six best times then advance to the title race on Sunday. 

Each team — made up of verified members of a federally recognized Native American tribe — is comprised of a jockey, two horse holders, and a fourth person called a catcher or mugger. The bareback rider must complete three laps around the track, switching to a fresh horse at the end of each lap in that team’s designated exchange zone. As Coby was reminded in June, those transitions areas are extremely dangerous, particularly when a competitor’s horse gets loose or doesn’t want to cooperate. 

But even though he’s far from being fully healed from the injury he suffered when he was very nearly trampled by Jackson’s horse, Coby is ready to once again display that same fearlessness he has demonstrated on a snowmobile since he was a little kid. After completing his look with an American flag headband and a pair of Oakley Meta smart glasses that will capture point-of-view video of the race, Coby and his five fellow competitors are off on the judge’s signal.

After starting off in the middle of the pack, Coby is still in rather congested space at the first exchange. But thanks to his teammates and his leg holding up, Coby’s transition between horses is nearly perfect, and he ends up in the lead after getting back out on the track. The second exchange for Teton Team isn’t quite as pristine, but Coby barely manages to hold off JonMarc Skunkcap of Team White Knife and win the heat by nearly one full length.  

“I really had to push my last horse because JonMarc and I were battling the whole time,” Coby says of Skunkcap, a fellow Fort Hall native who ended up in the hospital after a horrific horse collision at the national championship races in 2025. “We were head-to-head going into the last turn, but that’s when that horse really shines. He likes to start running his hardest at the end, so I wasn’t too worried.”

Afterwards, Coby and his team pose for a quick photo at the finish line while being lauded over a microphone by his father, Alonzo Coby, a former bull rider for the USU Rodeo Team. He’s also the current president of the Fort Hall Indian Relay Association and serves as master of ceremonies for the festival races. 

“As long as he doesn’t say too much and stays unbiased, I’m OK with it,” Azeri says of having Alonzo talk up his performance to the fans in the stands. “He’s obviously my dad, and he wants me to do well. But if he gets too biased, I’ll tell him to stop.”

Back in the shade of the Teton Team trailer, Azeri Coby gets a cool drink and starts removing a whole lot of tape as he ponders the rest of the weekend.

“I feel fine,” he proclaims. “My leg feels really good. It’s the weirdest thing, but my doctor said movement is key for healing the MCL. So, that’s why I try not to sit around too much because that’s when it starts hurting.”

Relaying Information

Indian relay racing has a strong presence in the western United States — particularly Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming — while a whole other circuit can be found across the border in Canada. But even though numerous documentaries have been produced in recent years and the races were featured on a segment of 60 Minutes in 2024, Azeri Coby often finds himself explaining what is billed as “America’s original extreme sport.”

“If someone doesn’t know what it is, I’ll generally send or show them a video of it because it’s so hard to explain,” he says. “But the easiest way I’ve found to explain it is that it’s like a relay race, only the horses are the runners, and I’m the baton.”

That human “baton” grew up the son of Alonzo and Elise Coby in Lincoln Creek Valley, just east of Blackfoot, near the northern edge of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. And despite being surrounded by Indian relay racing from the time he was born, Azeri insists he didn’t plan on becoming a fifth-generation jockey and was traumatized by his grandfather’s horses when he was young. But one day, he got “bored” while hanging out with a relative and decided to throw a bridle on one of his family’s horses.

“He ended up running away with me on a sand hill, like literally running. I couldn’t stop him, and I was full-blown running on this horse,” Coby recalls. “I had never really ridden a horse before, but it was easy. After that, I pretty much just helped the team out every day exercising the horses.”

Coby ended up on Teton Team in his early teens, primarily serving as the back catcher, the person in charge of holding whichever horse is not being used. He then stepped into the role of catcher on occasion before getting on a horse himself to compete in Chief races the summer before his junior year of high school. During Chief races, competitors complete just one lap on a single horse while wearing a traditional Native American headdress. 

Coby’s first opportunity at competing in a relay race came after he graduated from Blackfoot High School in 2021, but it was for his uncle’s team.

“And I got my butt kicked, obviously, because it was really, really tough,” he admits. 

And it was also “really, really tough” on his immediately family, particularly his mother. Elise grew up with the Teton Team started by her parents in 1985, and she even competed in some female horse races in her youth. But she also saw the toll it took on her husband, Alonzo, who was a standout rider for nearly three decades.

“Alonzo was a winner; he was a champion,” she says. “But as he got older, he started getting into accidents and getting hurt a lot more. And the kids were just terrified because they would see him get knocked out from a collision. He’d be laying there, blood coming out of his ear, and the kids would be freaking out.

“So, once he decided to hang it up, I got a break. I wasn’t stressed and just went to races to support my mom and dad’s team.”

The Cobys’ oldest son, Billyzane, raced a little bit before switching to other roles on Teton Team. But Elise still seems surprised that Azeri, who she remembers, “running around in his underwear when he was a little guy, straddling the arms of the couches like he was mounting a horse so often that we had buy him a whip so he could simulate that he was a relay rider,” ended up as one of the better jockeys on the circuit.

“He just took off,” she declares. “And now he’s probably on his way to having his own team someday. … But right now he wants to carry my dad’s legacy.”

Azeri Coby has already started to develop his own brand, competing in Chief races under the name of Rock Star Made. But he is also extremely proud to carry on a family legacy that goes back more than a century. Alonzo Coby’s grandfather, Keno Coby Jr., was a champion racer dating back to the 1920s, and seeing Keno compete as a child is one of the things that initially got Clarence Teton interested in Indian relay racing. 

“The Coby team is probably the longest running team on the reservation, which is my family,” Alonzo Coby says. “My nephews continue to do it, but there’s also the Tetons. So, it’s a very, very important tradition in our families that’s been passed from generation to generation. It’s going to be a sad day when we don’t have a Coby team or a Teton team.”

While it’s believed the original concept of Indian relay racing goes back four or five centuries, races in their current form first developed in the early 1900s. While the exact date and location is disputed, Fort Hall lays claim as the birthplace of the sport. Regardless, there’s no disputing the amount of pride members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe feel because of that designation.

“When these races happen, it’s like every tribe is going against one another, and whoever wins is the best tribe,” Azeri Coby says. “I don’t know how other people look at it, but that’s how we look at it. So, it’s important for us to hold our ground when people come here, and the cultural significance is still here. It’s beautiful.”

Danger on the Track

A standout multi-sport athlete at Blackfoot High School in the ’80s, Alonzo Coby aspired to play wide receiver at Utah State before being derailed by a knee injury during a spring football practice as a freshman. However, he elected to stay at USU while competing in something arguably even more dangerous: bull riding.

“I loved riding bulls,” Alonzo proclaims. “I started riding bulls at 12 years old. That was my passion.”

His other passion was his high school sweetheart, Elise, and both of them ended up graduating from Utah State University. Alonzo, who currently serves as director of planning and development for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, completed a degree in environmental design/architecture, while Elise earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental engineering. Now employed at the Idaho National Laboratory, she is pursuing a second master’s in nuclear engineering through Idaho State University.

“The whole college experience there was such a blessing,” Alonzo says. “I always tell my friends that the best times of my life were getting my education at Utah State University. … That’s why we were really glad when Azeri chose Utah State University because he was kind of on the fence between going there and the University of Utah. I can still remember him tell us he was going to USU while we were standing in the kitchen. 

“We were so happy. We knew he was going to get a great education there and having him graduate in December and becoming an alum of Utah State means a lot to us.”

During his time in Logan, Azeri has managed to juggle his time working towards his degree in computer science while also competing in relay racing in the fall and doing a lot of snowmobiling in the winter. A self-proclaimed “adrenaline junkie,” Alonzo Coby has been featured in several Alpine Assassins videos that feature sledders tackling deep powder and dropping off some high cliffs, and now he’s usually joined in the backcountry by Billyzane and Azeri. 

“It scares me every time they get on a snowmobile because they’re so freaking talented, and the things that they do are unbelievable,” Alonzo insists. “Azeri’s been riding with us since he was 12, and people couldn’t believe how old he was. That kid is a really, really talented sledder.”

Like his father, Azeri also wanted to be a bull rider before getting into Indian relay racing. And in Alonzo’s experience, that isn’t necessarily the safer route to take. 

“Indian relay,” Alonzo quickly replies when asked which sport he got hurt the worst competing in. “I broke my shoulder into three pieces when I was racing and my horse went over the rail with me on it.”

The Cobys witnessed more of that danger firsthand on June 14 at the Muckleshoot Gold Cup. That race includes a fourth horse and an extra exchange, and while Azeri was coming in for his final transition, Joe Jackson was heading back onto the track. The head of Jackson’s horse knocked Azeri off his mount and briefly onto the ground, directly in front of Jackson’s horse. 

Still clinging to the reins, Azeri managed to get out of Jackson’s path only to spin around to the side of his horse and end up on the ground. He somehow avoided being trampled, got back on his feet, ran to this final horse, and still finished the championship race in fifth place. 

“I was standing right standing behind the team, and when he got hit like that, as a father the first thing that came to my mind is, ‘I hope he’s OK and I hope the horse is OK,’” Alonzo remembers. “Seeing your child get hurt is what you fear most, and I know because I’ve been through it. I was a jockey for almost 28 years, and I know that injuries happen when horses are going that speed. 

“We were just so thankful it was just his knee getting tweaked.”

Of course, that sprained MCL still managed to throw Azeri Coby’s season into disarray shortly after it got started on Memorial Day weekend. Unable to train like he usually does — Coby says he’s determined the ideal race weight for his 5-foot-9 frame is between 150-155 pounds — he was concerned about his ability to be explosive when he was cleared to return to action. 

But his mother, who has witnessed her son push himself in the late winter and spring to be in optimal condition come relay season, wasn’t surprised that he found out a way to get back on the track faster than anyone expected. 

“I have never seen a kid so determined,” Elise says. “Azeri has always been on top of his game as far as how to train his horses and how he trains himself. He’s always very disciplined with his regimen. He always works really hard to be the best athlete he can out there because he knows he has to match the horses. If they’re going to do their job, he has to do his job. They’re a team.”

It also helped that Azeri was able to compete in the Chief race, which doesn’t require a horse exchange, at the Fort Bridger Treaty Day races held at Fort Hall on July 3. Literally living the old adage of “get back on the horse” after experiencing something traumatic, Coby and his veteran horse, Henry, pulled away down the stretch to win the race and some prize money. 

“I was worried about him being safe, but I think that was important for him to enter the Chief race,” Alonzo says. “He was missing it a lot. I think it boosted his morale and his confidence getting back out there and winning.”

Back Up to Speed

After the opening-heat win at the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Festival on Friday, August 7, Azeri Coby’s outing the next day didn’t go as smoothly due to a team mishap on the first exchange. It put Teton Team on the cusp of not advancing to the championship race on Sunday afternoon. 

Five other teams were also in the same situation, so a drawing was held Saturday to decide which of those half-dozen teams would still have a shot at the title. 

“And we were the lucky ones that drew the chip to get into the championship,” Coby notes.

“Fortunately, the creators saw that they wanted the defending champion to be in the championship heat today,” Alonzo Coby echoes. 

Teton Team’s fortuitous draw set yet another showdown between Azeri Coby and Jackson with everything on the line, but as the championship race kicks off it’s JonMarc Skunkcap who leads the entire first lap with Azeri in second place. Following a near-perfect transition during the first exchange on another blistering hot day in Fort Hall, Coby vaults into the lead until Jackson catches up to him on the backstretch. The two rivals are neck-and-neck coming into their exchange zones. 

But while Jackson makes a clean change of horses, Coby ends up a little too far ahead of his final mount and is forced to take a quick step back before wrapping his hands around his horse’s neck and swinging up. That leaves Jackson and his horse directly in front of Coby as he leaves Teton Team’s zone, and he comes in so tight that Jackson briefly throws Coby a stiff arm with his right hand like a running back on the football field. 

Jackson is nearly up to speed at that point, and he quickly pulls away by several lengths. Coby closes the gap to about one length down the stretch, but it isn’t enough to catch Jackson, who raises his fist in triumph as he crosses the finish line while Coby bows his head slightly and acknowledges Jackson’s victory by pointing his whip in his direction.

“I jumped off, and I just hesitated,” Coby says of his critical second exchange. “My legs just kind of crumbled underneath me, and I didn’t have enough strength to make the next jump, so I just swung on. 

“I think my knee injury played into that because I haven’t really been able to train or run. So, I was just kind of testing where I was with this race, and I did a lot better than I thought. And if I’m being honest, my legs held up way better than I thought they would because I know I’m not at my full potential right now.”

As he starts to remove the colorful tape on his left leg, Coby says he plans to take it easy on his knee as much as possible before returning to action in a couple of weeks at the next race on the schedule. But he’s primarily focused on he and the Teton Team repeating at the Indian Relay National Championship Races held at the Eastern Idaho State Fair in September. 

“Azeri put in a lot of hard work the past two months rehabbing his leg, and he really gave it his all in the championship,” Alonzo Coby says of his son as he gets ready to leave the track. “It was unbelievable that he even made it to the championship. That’s quite the accomplishment considering he was competing against 23 of the top relay teams in the country while he’s probably only at about 80 or 90 percent.

“You know, if he had been able to race the past two months, it might have been a different story. But you know, that’s Indian relay. Injuries are a part of it. But as a father, I’m really, really proud of that kid.”  

Editor’s Note:Two weeks after their second-place finish at the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Festival, Azeri Coby and Teton Team won the Indian relay races at the Cassia County Fair in Burley, Idaho. But after winning all four of his heats at the National Indian Relay Championships at the Eastern Idaho State Fair in early September, Coby was unable to defend his title in the championship race on Sept. 12. A couple of small miscues during the second exchange led to Teton Team finishing second to Tristan Birdinground from Montana.