60 Minutes - 05/25/2025: Larkin’s War, Left Behind, Indian Relay

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Frank Larkin’s commitment to America is remarkable. A former Navy SEAL, he served in the Secret Service, at the Pentagon and as sergeant-at-arms of the U.S. Senate. However, as correspondent Scott Pelley reports, Larkin’s most significant contribution may be what he’s done since his son, Ryan, took his own life. Ryan was, like his father, a decorated Navy SEAL, and his death by suicide was attributed to depression. But Frank Larkin did not accept this explanation, and when pathologists discovered Ryan suffered from scarring in his brain, likely due to repeated low-level blast exposure, this father campaigned for a change in how Special Operations and the rest of the military train and protect their service members. When wildfires tore through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods of Los Angeles this winter, 9 billion pounds of toxic ash and debris were left behind. Now, a massive cleanup effort is underway to clear the 13,000 properties destroyed in the fire. Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi goes behind the scenes with the Environmental Protection Agency as it completes the first step: removing the hazardous waste. The rest of the debris is in the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers. Despite expedited cleanup efforts, some residents say they still don’t feel safe returning home. Bill Whitaker reports from the chaotic and high-speed racetrack of “America’s original extreme sport” - Indian Relay. As horse nation tribes unite for an exciting and dangerous bareback horse race, Whitaker looks at how the sport continues to grow and offer new opportunities of pride to the next generation of Native American youth. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Frank Larkin was a Navy SEAL and so was his son Ryan. Ryan took his own life after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but his father suspected there was more to Ryan's suicide than depression. Tonight, how a father fought for his son and continues to fight for those who serve. Failure's not an option. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick These are the remnants of all the synthetic stuff that makes up modern life after it burned in the Los Angeles wildfires. 60 Minutes was with the Environmental Protection Agency

as it began removing all the hazardous waste, including electric vehicles. Their batteries can explode when damaged. It sounds like you're treating these batteries almost like a live grenade in the field. Welcome to the 2023 Championship of Champions. In Indian relay, as many as six thoroughbred racehorses are brought to a start line drawn in the dirt. The horses are bareback, no saddles or stirrups. Their riders wear no protective gear.

At the sound of a horn, they leap aboard and tear down the track. These horses are able to run like you wouldn't believe. But the hard part comes from jumping off. Yeah! I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega.

I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. The Hot Honey McRisbee is so back at McDonald's. With juicy 100% Canadian-raised seasoned chicken, shredded lettuce, crispy jalapenos, and that completely craveable hot honey sauce, it's a sweet heat repeat you don't want to miss. Get your Hot Honey McRisbee today. Available for a limited time, only at McDonald's. Whether you own a bustling hair salon, a painting company that just landed a big job, or the hottest new bakery in town,

you need business insurance that can keep up with your evolving needs. With flexible coverage options from TD Insurance, you only pay for what you need. Get a quote in minutes from TD Insurance today. TD, ready for you. Frank Larkin's service to America is extraordinary. A former Navy SEAL whose government career included the Secret Service, the Pentagon, and the US Senate.

But Larkin's greatest contribution is happening now, in retirement, after his son Ryan, a decorated Navy SEAL himself, took his own life. Ryan's death was put down to mental illness, case closed. But as we first told you earlier this year, Frank Larkin didn't buy it. He suspected his son's military service resulted in an invisible brain injury, a kind of wound unknown to science. If Larkin was right, it might explain many military suicides. And so began Frank Larkin's war, which would send a shockwave through the Pentagon. It began in April 2017, when Larkin's war, which would send a shockwave through the Pentagon. It began in April 2017, when Larkin and his wife opened the door to a silent home. I went in the house, we started calling his name, didn't hear any response, and so I went into the and I found him. He had taken his life sometime during the night.

He was dressed in his SEAL Team 7 t-shirt, had a pair of red, white, and blue board shorts on, and had illuminated a shadow box next to him that had all his medals, ribbons, and other key insignia. It was a shadow box that I had made for him the previous holiday to just capture how proud I was of him and what he had done as a symbol of his service to the nation. And then he had also burned a hard drive

in the fireplace with all his deployment photos that he had had from, you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa. You know, I've spent over 40 years of my life rescuing other people, and in the end, I couldn't rescue my own son. His son, Ryan, was 29. For him, the military was destiny. Ryan had been 13 years old in September 2001 when his dad was assigned to the New York Secret Service Office across the street from the World Trade Center.

He was motivated by 9-11. I had been on the ground on 9-11 in New York City, had gotten caught up in all that turmoil. And he had witnessed that from a hillside west of the city, a town that we lived in in New Jersey. And it, you know, emotionally impacted him. I didn't realize how much. So much that Ryan joined the Navy out of high school and rose to elite special operations, a SEAL,

or as Navy slang has it, a frogman. This is Ryan on one of four combat tours, to an Iraq, to an Afghanistan. One stretch lasted about a year. When did you notice that Ryan was not the Ryan that you knew? It was coming off that year-long deployment. He became short-fused. You know, he stopped laughing, which was a key sign.

He became very stoic in his facial expression. I would almost characterize it as putting a mask on, where at times he would get into this mode where he was almost looking right through you. Burn all! Ryan had returned from the wars to become an instructor in training like this. But his mood only darkened. Navy doctors scanned Ryan's brain but saw no physical injury.

He was treated for depression, alcoholism, in and out of the hospital. But at no point had they ever settled on a clinical diagnosis as to what was wrong with him. And it just tore him apart. He said to me, Dad, I don't even feel like I'm in my own body. In August 2016, Brian wrote the Navy, and he said, quote, I need help. I just want to feel normal again and live a purposeful life.

I loved being a SEAL. What is he asking for? He's asking for help. I will say that there are some very good people that were trying to do the right thing for the right reason, but maybe all the wrong way because they just didn't know what they didn't know. While others couldn't be bothered with, you know, a broken frog man, you know, let's get rid of it.

Let's get rid of the problem. In 2016, Ryan was discharged honorably. He was released from a Navy medical center with an illness no one could correctly diagnose. And he said, if anything ever happens to me, I want you to donate my body, my brain, for traumatic brain injury research. And of course, as a father, I'm saying, hey, look,

I'm here for you. We're going to get through this. We're going to figure this out." I said, you know, please tell me you're not thinking about hurting yourself. You know, no, Dad, I never will go that way. I'm telling you, I'll never go that way. And about a month later, that's exactly what happened.

Frank Larkin's four decades of service prepared him for what came next. A Navy SEAL in the 70s, he spent 20 years in the Secret Service, then led a Pentagon project to defeat roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, he became Sergeant-at-Arms for the U.S. Senate in charge of security. Larkin knew people, knew the military, and the ways of Washington. And that put me on this path that I'm on right now, to try to effect change so that we had

no more riots. A war of your own. That's right. And failure's not an option. Larkin donated his son's brain to Dr. Daniel Pearl at the Uniformed Services University, the military medical school. We met Dr. Pearl in 2017 while reporting on how autopsies discovered microscopic scars in the brains of veterans who had taken their own lives. Depression overwhelmed them months or years after the enormous blast of a roadside bomb. And with the explosion comes the formation

of something called the blast wave. And it is sufficiently powerful to pass through the skull and through the brain. Dr. Pearl found scarring in Ryan Larkin's brain, but there was one big difference. Larkin had not been hit by a roadside bomb. Most of what he endured was low-level, repeated shocks from his own weapons.

For example, this large caliber rifle, notorious for leaving gunners dizzy. But even more, there was his job as a trainer. Students came and went, but Ryan supervised every blast, every raid, every day. Ryan died from his combat injuries, from his service to this nation. He just didn't die right away. Injuries, from routine weapons and tactics. Frank Larkin took the evidence to old friends, now in command of special operations.

They to their credit aggressively started to peel the onion on this and started saying, this is, there's something going on here. We've got to understand this. In 2019, Special Operations launched a preliminary study to look for brain injuries from cumulative low-level blasts. At Frank Larkin's urging, Vice Admiral Tim Simansky found $4 million and 30 active duty volunteers who were suffering symptoms. The symptoms were broad and they encompassed cognitive symptoms like difficulty with memory

and attention, physical symptoms like dizziness and headaches, as well as psychological symptoms like depression and disinhibition. Harvard professor Dr. Brian Edlow led the research at Massachusetts General Hospital. He put the troops into scanners twice as powerful as a typical MRI and discovered changes in brain structure. And this particular region of the brain is critically important because it modulates emotion and cognition. And a person who has pathology in that part of the brain

would have what kind of symptoms? They could have a broad range of symptoms that could include difficulty with higher-level thinking or decision-making. They could have difficulty regulating their emotions. They could have disinhibition or difficulty controlling anger, for example. And you put it all together, and what do you find? We find that blast overpressure waves may be penetrating the skull into the brain

via the orbits, the eyes, because this location within the brain is just behind the eyes. In 2023, Ed Lowe showed that to special operations. A larger, long-term study will be needed to confirm the results. But Special Operations Commanding General Brian Fenton isn't waiting. There's a lot more questions than we have answers right now. But all of it, if I could put it into, I guess, a summation, less is better in terms of exposure to blast-over

pressure. And we've got to get after that. Today, Special Operations is testing a door-breaching charge with half the blast pressure. Training rooms are now designed to absorb shock waves, and they're training with no blast at all. Augmented reality and virtual reality training, I think that's very important to us as we go forward. And real weapons, modified for less shock, are being studied. Can you be effective in the field with these modified weapons?

We will not be ineffective with these weapons. And if we are, we won't use that weapon. And we'll be able to accomplish the mission and protect our force at the very same time. And also, by extension, with the work we're doing, do that for the rest of the services. The rest of the armed services are modifying training and weapons,

in part because Frank Larkin pushed Congress to pass two laws requiring action. A new five-year study is being planned with 200 subjects. These are early days. Typical MRIs can't see the injury, so there's no test and no diagnosis. But if this is a turning point, it is thanks in part to a father who believed in his son.

Ryan is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, and I know that you go out there from time to time. I wonder what you say to him. Well, I talked to him. First of all, I want to make sure he's behaving himself. And I told him that, you know, I'm not giving up. And I got to tell you, Scott, he's here with us right now. You know, much of what I'm saying is him, his words, speaking through me. I didn't like what he did. I didn't like what he did.

I didn't support what he did, but I've grown to understand why he did it. And he wasn't taking the easy way out. It wasn't, you know, weakness. He was all about solutions. And this is how he was going to get their attention. Brian accomplished his last mission. To a great degree, yes, but we still have a ways to go.

That will be accomplished when we see where these men and women are getting the care that they need, but more importantly, you know, buying down the risk on the front end with prevention. That's when we can slap the table. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with a TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play?

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and Altadena neighborhoods to ash. City, state, and federal leaders promised to expedite the rebuilding process and in February completed an important first step. The Environmental Protection Agency cleared more than 9,000 properties in 28 days. The EPA says it is the fastest hazardous debris removal in its history. We'll show you exactly how they did that and why some residents, including those with homes still intact, say they still don't feel safe to return. As we first reported in March, they're worried about what the wildfires left behind.

Brick chimneys and burnt trees are the sole markers of what were once picture-perfect Southern California neighborhoods. House after house on this Pacific Palisades block was destroyed by wildfire, except for this one. On the corner of Iliff Street, we met Lynn McIntyre. Her 1940s stucco home is inexplicably intact. Everything around you is gone. Every single house. I look at it and I said, why? Why was my house spared? I call myself one of the left behinds

because I don't have the same set of issues that all of my neighbors have. They're cut and dried. Their properties have burned to the ground. My home did not. Some people would look at you and go, oh, she's one of the lucky ones. But now you're dealing with what? she's one of the lucky ones.

But now you're dealing with what? I don't feel as lucky as people think. The firefighters said that this fire was like a blowtorch. They've never had anything so hot before, and it cooked everything inside my home at I don't know how many hundreds of degrees for I don't know how many hours. How do you salvage anything from that?

There are 10,000 houses still standing in the burn zones. The strong winds that fueled the wildfires pushed smoke and soot into those homes and left tons of toxic ash and debris at their doorsteps. These are the remnants of all the synthetic stuff that makes up modern life. Appliances, clothing, and carp, after it all burned at high heat. It's a unique component of urban fires that is complicating cleanup efforts.

We were with the Environmental Protection Agency as it took the first step, removing all the hazardous waste, propane tanks, cleaning supplies and paint cans, while negotiating the newest challenge, electric vehicles. Chris Myers runs the EPA's lithium-ion battery emergency response team. He says batteries in electric vehicles can explode or ignite when damaged. Uncontrolled out in the field in the public access is very, very dangerous for anyone who is on site, right? Not just our workers, but the public at large.

And Meyer says just identifying electric vehicles after they were incinerated was a challenge. It used to be fairly simple. If there was not an internal combustion engine with that vehicle, it was an EV, right? But now we have plug-in hybrids, hybrid vehicles, a tremendous amount of different platforms in which batteries are included in those vehicles. I mean there's not stuff left in some, you barely tell it's a car a lot of the time.

Exactly. So the EPA conducted reconnaissance. Dozens of teams fanned out across the burn zones, searching for the skeletons of electric vehicles in the debris, and calling power companies and manufacturers to locate the power walls that were often attached to homes to charge them. EPA teams found about 600 EVs, most of them in Lynn McEntire's Palisades neighborhood. We watched as an EPA team approached one of them. Our crew was instructed to stay back 75 feet.

Because even weeks or months after they're damaged, lithium ion batteries can explode, emit toxic gases, or reignite. It sounds like you're treating these batteries almost like a live grenade in the field, that you don't know exactly what you're dealing with. That is a way that we actually speak about damaged right or insulted lithium-ion batteries because they are delicate they're fragile they're unstable. Because they are unstable extracting the batteries from one electric vehicle can take a six-person team up to two hours. It's a delicate surgery performed with heavy machinery.

First, the top of the car is sawed off. Then an excavator flips it, exposing the battery underneath. Thousands of cells that make up the battery are scooped out and placed into steel drums. Those drums, up to six are needed for each car, are then transported here to this temporary processing site where they are plunged into a saltwater bath for three days. The saltwater gives any trapped energy a place to go, so they're less likely to reignite. See those bubbles?

That's energy releasing from the batteries. Those cylindrical cells are from generally the vehicles or other energy storage systems. But it is the same battery from a toothbrush to a hoverboard to an e-bike to a scooter to a golf cart to a vehicle to a power wall. That's a battery-powered scooter. Meyer shared this simulation video to show how smaller lithium ion batteries, when damaged or overheated, can explode and spark a fire. Meyer says even

batteries that don't appear damaged, such as this power wall, can be dangerous. Intact batteries are typically more volatile, so they have to be brined before their cylinders are removed. After a thorough soaking, the cells are scooped out, shoveled onto a steel plate and steamrolled. After you've smashed them up, then where does that waste go? So that waste goes to either recycling facility or disposal. How much of the waste can be recycled? Well, it's tough because there's so much damage

to these batteries. Oftentimes they're burned up, they're covered with ash, there's a lot of contaminants. It's actually probably ejected most of what would be recoverable during recycling into the air and surrounding area. So there's not a lot? There's not a lot.

There's not a lot of value still left in what we have here. And what is left is technically still a hazardous material under California's strict environmental regulations. But here's why that is complicated. There were only two landfills in California certified to take hazardous materials, and even before the fires, they couldn't hold all of the state's hazardous waste. So we wondered, where was all of this battery waste going? We found the answer 600 miles away in Knowles, Utah.

About half of California's hazardous waste is trucked hundreds of miles away and buried in nearby states, mainly Utah and Arizona, which rely on more lenient federal waste standards. Back in California, a cavalry of trucks arrived to start the second phase of the cleanup, removing the rest of the debris, about nine billion pounds worth.

I anticipate having all fire ash and debris removed by the one year anniversary of this fire. Colonel Eric Swenson is a commander for the Army Corps of Engineers. It was tasked by FEMA to clear the 13,000 properties destroyed by the fires, removing everything from concrete foundations to furniture. More than 9,000 homeowners have opted for their help, and as of last week, about 4,400 parcels had been cleared.

How long does it take to do a single house? So it takes anywhere from one to four days to do a standard-sized house. If we have a house that's pinned on the side of the mountain, those properties could take us six, eight, ten days to do because we're going to need some specialized equipment to get in there. All that remaining debris from burned down homes is headed to 17 landfills and recycling centers across California. After the property is cleared, six inches of soil are removed in an effort to get rid of any contaminants that may have seeped into the ground. In your mind, six inches is deep enough to remove the soil

to make the area safe? Absolutely. And I know previously in other fires, more soil has been removed. Why not remove more soil now? We find that it's not necessary. If you over-escavate a property and continue to dig down deeper, maybe you'll find a lead pipe that was installed for drinking water

80 years ago that was never properly removed. And so all we're doing is economically disadvantaging that owner because now they're going to have to replace all of that soil we excavated from that property. California Governor Gavin Newsom doesn't think removing six inches of soil is enough. His office asked FEMA to test the remaining soil for toxic contaminants, as FEMA has done after previous wildfires. But FEMA says the agency changed its approach to soil testing in 2020 because it found the contamination deeper than six inches was typically pre-existing and not necessary for public health protection.

I think it's pertinent that we test inside, outside, soil. Do as much testing, get as much data as we can. We need to know what we're working with. Matthew Craig lived here in Altadena with his wife and son. Fire destroyed the homes across the street from them. But with the help of neighbors and, he says, a comically short garden hose, Craig was able to save his home. But we haven't spent more than an hour in the house since the fire started.

Why haven't you gone back into the house for longer than an hour? What's inside? These houses are filled with asbestos. They're filled with lead. The Teslas and the EVs, those batteries are exploding. They sounded like hand grenades, right? So that's all in the atmosphere as well as all over the ground. So there's a ton of debris and you'll see that debris all over my house. And you can smell it as soon as you open the door.

Craig's home is frozen in time. A fine film clings to everything, leaving an outline of the teddy bear he tried to salvage for his son. It's so deceiving because outside the house looks like it's pristine and inside it really looks nice. It's everywhere. It's under your feet. It's on all of this.

Craig's insurance company has agreed to test the inside of his home for toxins, and he's waiting to hear whether they'll cover his cleanup costs. If someone was to look at this and say, it's dust, right? Clean it up, move on. Yeah. What would you say? The house is filled with the ashes of thousands of homes that are hundreds of years old. It's not just dust. It's 100,000 gallons of pesticides. It's a million gallons of lead paint.

It's a million pounds of insulation. Back in the Palisades, Lynn McIntyre has theories about why her house was somehow spared in the fires. But what she is desperate for now are some definitive answers. What are you being told about the safety of your air, of your soil, of the inside of your home? Nothing. Nothing. There's no guidelines for moving back. There's no guidelines for what you should be looking for. There's no guidelines telling you who to call or regulate. Testing

is like, it's a wild west out there with the testing, with the remediation companies. People are just grasping at straws with no guidance from government. So she decided to pay $5,000 out of pocket to have her home tested for toxins. The tests revealed arsenic in her home and lead levels 22 times higher than what the EPA considers

safe. Her insurance company says it will not cover the cost of cleaning it all up because it says it does not constitute, quote, a direct physical loss. Lynn McIntyre signed an 18-month lease on an apartment out of town, anticipating the road home for her and her neighbors will be a long one. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments. Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game.

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The Shoshone, Crow, Blackfeet, Sioux, and other tribes first saw horses when Spaniards brought them to this continent 500 years ago, and have used them in hunting and in battle ever since. Collectively, these tribes call themselves the Horse Nations. As we first reported last year, men and women from those tribes also use horses in a sport that fans have dubbed America's original extreme sport. The tribes call it Indian relay. Its roots date back centuries, and it's one of the most exciting, dangerous, and inspiring things you're ever likely to see.

Welcome to the 2023 Championship of Champions. We start at the start. In Indian relay, as many as six thoroughbred racehorses are brought to a start line drawn in the dirt. The horses are bareback, no saddles or stirrups. Their riders wear no protective gear. At the sound of a horn, they leap aboard and tear down the track.

To actually get on a horse bareback and run as fast as you can around is easy. That's easy. Yeah. Ken Realbird is a sort of senior statesman of Indian Relay and announces races all over the American West. These horses are able to run like you wouldn't believe but the hard part comes from jumping off. Wait, what? After the riders race one lap around the half-mile track,

On your rail Riley! they all speed into a sort of equine pit row, where teammates are waiting with fresh horses for what's known as the exchange. So he has to come in, gear down enough, and then angle that horse in. He gets off and takes one, two, three steps and he's on to the back of that horse. Boom, there he goes. Ken Realbird makes that flying leap from one horse to another sound simple. It is not. It's more like a dangerous, chaotic dance, with riders and horses from six teams all

trying to do the same thing at the same time in the same space. You have what they call the setup man. Their job primarily is to have that horse in the proper position as the rider comes in. Simultaneously, you have a guy who's usually a nimble guy on his feet, and he's got to catch that horse coming in at 15 miles an hour. That horse, he really doesn't care about your feelings. A third member of the pit crew is holding a third horse because the riders must do another leap for another lap.

It's exciting, but it's dangerous too, isn't it? Yeah. A lot of injuries. Almost every heat will have some of the guys getting run over. Can you imagine the front line of Kansas City Chiefs all combining in one and just run over you? That's what it's going to feel like because that horse is a thousand pounds. Injuries to both horses and humans are part of the sport.

The team that best avoids collisions and wins that third lap on a third horse can be forgiven for showing off at the finish. Well that was a great race. Ken Realbird says the roots of modern Indian relay are in the horse-stealing raids that tribes once staged against white settlers and each other. These young men of the different nations would travel when it was middle of the night.

They would come and take the prized horse and hightail it back to their home country. They exchanged horses as they were running because they were being pursued. And so that's pretty much the origin of the Indian, really, sport that we know today. Races in the organized sport were first conducted in the early 1900s.

When it first started out, the majority of these races were happening more within their own communities, native communities on the reservations. I've seen some races. Calvin Ghost Bear is a member of the Sioux Tribe. Seven heats, eight heats. And president of an organization called the Horse Nations Indian Relay Council.

What we do with Horse Nations is we basically took a lot of the races that were within the tribal nations, brought them out into the mainstream. Now we're bringing it onto a bigger stage. The summer Indian relay circuit crisscrossed the West and climaxed in Casper, Wyoming, with a three-day championship event that celebrated tribal culture in song... And drum... And dance...

And offered more than $100,000 in prize money, thanks to sponsorship from a casino owned by the Northern Arapaho tribe. This is the lady. It included a women's division. It's two laps and two horses, rather than the three and three in men's races. But the athleticism and danger are every bit as evident. Now, there's no quitting these kids.

There's also a kids Indian relay. Takes a great tumble. With riders as young as six, racing on ponies, climbing on and falling off. He's gonna be all right. Those are the guys that grow up to be the great riders, the great setup men, because they're all horsemen. And it's like that in every reservation.

On the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, we met Irvin Carlson and his son Chaz, who have been competing in Indian relay for years. Chaz is one of the most seasoned riders on the summer circuit. For relay making you good in the sport is this practice, practice, practice and years of experience. We take Chaz's off. Chaz is on early. Chaz is on track. Another team we followed through the summer Indian relay circuit is led by Tuesday Washakie from the Shoshone Tribe in Wyoming.

Her younger sister Zia is the rider for their women's team. Both feel a close connection to their horses. If you're having a bad day and it's just not going your way, you can go out and you can catch your horse and ride him and things will just seem to be better. I think that's just how it is. Mason Redwing feels the same bond and obligation to care for his horses. It's really something special because we're all here for one purpose and it's the horse. Just setting up over here.

Mason hails from the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. When I was younger I didn't know why I used to feel such anger and animosity towards my own people. I didn't want to be Native American. And the horse helped me reconnect with my culture and be proud of who I am and proud of where I'm from. Why were you feeling you didn't like being a Native American? Growing up where I'm from on the reservation,

you see a lot of things that make you not proud. Like what? To be where I'm from. Alcoholism, drug addiction, drug abuse, suicide. Suicide rates on the reservation are four or five times the national average. My own father was succumbed to alcoholism. So it really hit home.

You said the horse saved your life? Yep, yes sir, essentially. You think it does that for a lot of young Native American kids? I think so. There's a lot of kids out there that are just looking for that doorway. There's little glamour in Indian relay and lots of hard work. Every team is self-funded and nearly everyone has a day job to help pay the bills. But the sport is on the rise.

Prize money is increasing and 67 teams competed in the 2023 championships. The quality of horses is rising too. Teams go to major racetracks like Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, to buy sprinters well suited to Indian relay. Kentucky, that would be the ultimate demonstration race before the derby. That would be my goal. Lots of thrills and hopefully no spills today. Each team competed in one heat each day of the championships. Their cumulative time from the first two days determined whether they made the final championship heat on Sunday.

determined whether they made the final championship heat on Sunday. Is the race usually won or lost in the exchange? Yeah. It's like a relay team in track and field. But in Indian relay, exchanges involve six riders, 18 horses, 18 other humans, and a cloud of dust. From what I've seen, it's like... Chaos. Chaos. In the block, it's gonna be OV Dawes.

Tuesday, Washakie's women's team made the championship heat in Casper. OV Dawes is right there. And her sister Zia had a clean exchange in that race. They finished a close second. I don't know, you get demoralized or does it make you more determined? It makes me more determined, man.

I'd be out here mad as hell, but I shouldn't be. Winning it all is gonna be the Taimantois. The first place women's relay team came from the Colville Reservation in Washington State with rider Talia Taimantois. Is this your first championship? No, I actually won the first one in Walla Walla. Alright.

Yeah, when I was 13. And how old are you now? 17. 17? Yeah. Wow. Are you going to do it again next year? Yeah, I'm going to do it as long as I can.

I love this game. The day before, we had watched Talia win a heat with her arms raised in a pose of triumph and strength. It is how we connect to the warriors of the past, the warriors of 200 years ago. It's that same bloodline of that warrior that is cursing through their blood. Mason Redwing. Over three days of heat, we watched Mason Redwing and his team go from dirt pounding frustration when an exchange went wrong,

to exultation as another went right. Good, good, good. Because we're always searching for that perfect run. They didn't quite find it in the finals. It's for the championship of the world. The team that did... was the one we'd first met months earlier on the Blackfeet Reservation. Irvin Carlson and his son Chaz.

So we've been following you like all summer. Like this is the culmination of everything you've done all year. So does this give you bragging rights for a year or what? As a tribal elder sang a traditional praise song in honor of their victory and organizers presented them with a check for $20,000, we noticed a group of kids at the rail, on their ponies, watching intently. What the horse done for me, I know the horse can do that for everyone a thousand times over. And I'm a firm believer in it. I know for a fact it can bring our young men and our young women back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm Sharon Alfonzi. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.