DENVER — Stock show competitors and their animals were left stranded after trying to get out of the city during Wednesday's snow.
To the east, roads were shut down, and back in Denver space at the stock was promised to new competitors coming into town.
The stock show operates like a livestock hotel, where animal owners make reservations to lodge their animals in the facility's barns.
Competitors who couldn't get home in the snow weren't able to extend their stays in the city because the space was reserved for everyone coming in.
Some people, and their animals, ended up spending the night by the side of the road or going to random ranches.
Two competitors scrambled to find a place for their horses, calling ranches all over.
Shiloh Sarah found one in Watkins with space but had to turn around when I-70 closed. Laura Hoff was looking, too. Both had multiple horses that needed a place to stay.
"When we continued to push to stay or find some kind of stall, even asked for cow stall, a pig stall, anything that we could put our horses in, so we wouldn't have to travel on the roads, we were told there was absolutely nothing," Hoff said of the Stock Show grounds. "And we were told that it was suggested literally to go ahead and load our horses up and pull out a stockyard grounds and pull alongside the road and wait the storm out."
She told her Stock Show contact they wouldn't be doing that and left her phone number in case anything opened up.
Then, late Wednesday night, Stock Show officials told them limited stalls had come available. When they showed up, they said it looked like there was plenty of room at the animal inn.
"They didn't have enough stalls right...There's five empty ones, there's like 10 empty ones, there's three more empty ones," Sarah said in a video she sent in, showing the rows of empty stalls that greeted them.
"We counted and there were 75 open stalls in an expo barn alone," Hoff said. "This morning when we went and picked up our horses, there were four mules that had moved in, so there were over 70 stalls still open this morning."
Hoff said she's been coming to the Stock Show for about 20 years. She and Sarah both say the experience has made them reconsider returning next year.
"I don't understand why they were so firm and dishonest about the barns being full and not letting people stay. We watched some other people friends of ours leave in tears because they were fearful for their horses," Hoff said.
9NEWS reached out to the stock show, and a spokesperson said the safety of the animals on their grounds is their priority and that they made accommodations last night.
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