If you’re worried about Ralphie V, don’t be.
The fifth iteration University of Colorado’s live Buffalo mascot officially retired on Tuesday after not taking her traditional lap pregame around the field for two straight football home games.
“It’s sad,” Ralphie Live Mascot Program Manager John Graves said Tuesday in a press conference. “It’s the end of an era.”
Ralphie V, whose birth name is Blackout, turned 13 in October and has been running for 12 years. That’s a fairly standard length for a Ralphie’s career. The difference for Ralphie V is the reason why she retired.
While past mascots have slowed down over their tenure at CU, Ralphie V only grew stronger and faster. She was 450 pounds when she first ran in public, during the 2008 spring game. Even then, she was too feisty to control, breaking out of the grasp of five of her six handlers. Luckily she was coralled before anybody was hurt.
Then she grew to 1,200 pounds—100 pounds heavier than the next biggest Ralphie—gaining speed all the way through the end of her career. The margin for error was slimmer than it had ever been in the 53-year history of the Ralphie Program.
This season, Ralphie became over-eager. She was so excited to make her run, that she ignored the cues her handlers gave her to signify that the time was coming closer.
“She loves to run, she’s always loved to run,” Graves said. “She was kind of taking things on her own terms. She was so excited to run, she wanted to run so badly that she wasn’t always taking the cues off of us.”
Prior to the USC game, Ralphie kicked hard in her pen as she waited for the team to become ready to take the field.
“Every single gameday run, we look at her and at the run and we see if we’re ready for the run and if she wants to do the run,” Graves said. “If she doesn’t, then we cancel the run.”
The day before Colorado’s next home game, against Stanford, Ralphie’s handlers faced the same problems as the week before. They announced that Ralphie wasn’t running the night before the game.
“She’s telling us it’s time to retire,” Graves said.
Now the next step is finding Ralphie VI.
Graves has identified a few potential candidates and he’ll check them out in the near future. The buffalo he’s recruiting are all young, about 1, which makes it nearly impossible to predict how big and fast they’ll be when they mature around age 5. What he wants to see is whether the buffalo has a body that signifies longterm health, with a particular focus on the joints.
More than anything, it’s about her personality.
“The biggest thing we look for is their overall temperment and their mood and how friendly they are with people,” Graves said. “We look for a buffalo who wants to do the job, like Ralphie V has always wanted to do her job.”
The Ralphie Program hit on Ralphie V. She’s friendly for a buffalo. So friendly, in fact, that when Graves drives out into her pasture every day, she runs up to his truck to greet him.
Their time together isn’t coming to an end anytime soon. Ralphie IV lived to be almost 20, and Ralphie V will live out the rest of her life at her ranch. Graves and the handlers will visit every day to take care of her.
When she’s alone, Ralphie will still have plenty of toys to keep her entertained. She loves bashing into traffic cones—the big orange cylinders, not the skinny ones—and the City of Boulder donated brushes from street sweepers for her to rub up on.
Ralphie’s retirement is bittersweet for Graves. While, he’s going to miss running with Ralphie V, he’s excited to meet Ralphie VI.
“It’s always exciting when the new generation of Ralphie comes on board,” Graves said. “Getting to build that new bond, and that new attatchment with a new buffalo, it’s just so great and magical. I’ve known Ralphie V for almost 13 years and she’s awesome.”
There’s no timetable for Ralphie VI to be ready to run. Each Ralphie has taken a different amount of training to be ready. Graves hopes to have a Ralphie ready for the 2020 season, but also noted that some Ralphies in the past have began their career by waiting in a pen on the field to greet the team, rather than running. It’s just too early to know when the next Ralphie will be ready to run.
“We’ll have Ralphie VI ready when Ralphie VI is ready,” Graves said. “It’s entirely up to that buffalo.”
Ralphie V will have on more public appearance. While she won’t run prior to the Colorado-Washington game, she will be in her pen, where fans can say goodbye before she heads back to her ranch for good.
