The rural gambling scene’s own version of ‘craps’

CORNWALL — On Saturday morning, Sept. 10, Tom Barrett, who serves as the treasurer for the Cornwall Volunteer Fire Department, had set up a perimeter on the field neighboring Town Hall  for the annual cow chip contest. 

This is the 25th anniversary of the Agricultural Fair, as well as of the Cow Chip contest. The origin of the idea? No one knows. 

The ground was spray painted with equal intersecting lines, dividing the space into squares numbered 1 to 1,000, like a giant game of checkers. 

Cow Chip isn’t a game of strategy or skill or one that involves much human participation. No, the main player is a cow. 

This year that honor fell on two dairy cows, Brook and Cinderella, owned by Wendy Kennedy, secretary of the Cornwall Agricultural Advisory Commission, whose 16-year-old son, Housatonic Valley Regional High School student Patrick Kennedy, competes with the cows in 4-H events (a kind of statewide Junior Olympics for livestock enthusiasts). 

Brook and Cinderella spent the day in their pen, being petted while happily chewing on all the feed they could ever want — until the clock struck 3, and it was time for the Cow Chip contest to begin. 

Throughout the day, while the two diary cows were filling up on hay, Tom Barrett had been selling $2 tickets, each marked with the number of a square on the field. 

Considered “legal” gambling, as long as everything checks out with regulation inspectors from the state of Connecticut, the object of the game, once the cows are led into the fenced-in field, is to guess where the first well-fed farm animal will plop down a pile of poop.

The winning square is worth $300. The eight squares surrounding it are worth $20. 

The crowd gathered, multiple tickets in each person’s hands, eyes fixed on the cows now free to roam the field. There was a pulsing energy in the air and the rush of competition took hold of the silent, anticipatory onlookers. This was gambling after all, and the metaphorical roulette wheel had just been spun. The dice were rolling. The final card was about to be revealed. Which cow would it be? Which square would she choose? 

It was a half hour of hardly anything to look at before anyone found out. Horse racing this was not.

Finally,  it was Cinderella who dropped not a glass slipper but, well, something else. It landed on square no. 747. Andy MacDavid, who had the numbers for two neighboring squares as well, won $340. 

The remaining winners were William McCarthy with $60 thanks to three correct squares. Lynn Scoville and Brian Christaldi picked up the remaining four, earning $40 each.