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For the last few summers, Reece Howden has spent his time on a ranch, taming horses and taking time away from massive training blocks and the pressures that go into being among the world’s elite athletes.
Even as he celebrates his fourth Crystal Globe title, having topped the FIS Ski Cross World Cup season for the third time in six seasons in 2025-26, he’s still not sure exactly how the horses have helped — he just knows they have.
“It's an amazing decompressant when it comes to at the end of the season when everything has been go, go, go and then you start working with horses, and that demands you to have control of your emotions, calm down, and it makes you slow down and step back a little bit,” he says, looking towards returning to the ranch in the near future.
“That’s been really good for me. I also find that I just really enjoy it, and it’s a serious passion that I have now, and it's really cool that I was able to find something like that.”
Learning from Horses
Through the horses, he vicariously learned patience and calmness within a physically imposing being, a factor critical not only to every gallop, but to the process and preparation for the pressures of international ski cross.
For Howden, it’s the calmness, knowing how to adjust slightly, understanding what he needed to do to be successful, and focusing on those things while also learning not to define himself by them.
“It’s helped in improving my overall lifestyle, the way that I look at the world, the way that I look at the way I want to act. It just improved me as a man and helped me grow into the person I am today,” he said.
“It’s helped me accept the thoughts that aren’t related to skiing, and I’ve let it be an okay thing. I can feel unconfident in myself, and still win.”
Howden’s Fourth Crystal Globe
The 2025-26 season was a landmark one in nearly every aspect for the 27-year-old native of Cultus Lake, BC.
After completing the season with two second-place finishes in Gällivare, Sweden, he finished the year with six wins and nine podiums, setting the record for the most men’s ski cross World Cup wins and passing France legend Jean-Frédéric Chapuis.
At the same time, it saw him lift his fourth Crystal Globe, an opportunity with 15 others, since ski cross became an officially-sanctioned FIS sport in 2002-03.He is also one of just three Canadians to earn the honour, alongside the now-retired Brady Leman and Kevin Drury.
“We really had it dialed this season. It really worked out, and the hard work paid off,” he says. “It was a wild ride, and it seemed like things were always up or always down and never even keeling, which was pretty crazy and emotional.”
While the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games and Howden’s early elimination sparked an emotional moment and shifted his focus in the sport’s biggest event, even he realizes that control can often be taken away from an athlete, whether by conditions, opposition or additional outside factors.
And from that challenge of ample snowfall destroying the Olympic course, he found peace.
From then, he recalibrated his season to chase the final results and Crystal Globe, securing the honour despite two challenging days in Craigleith, Ontario, the only races on home snow all season.
“I feel very fortunate to be a person who has found a sport in which they can excel that physically their body is well adapted for, where they can be extremely successful on the world stage,” he says.
“If I'm able to break some records and be the guy leading the world in World Cup wins, I'm really fortunate to be in that position, and I want to do my best not to squander it so I can really leave a mark on this sport.”
Inspiring the Next Wave
While being considered among the best to ever compete in ski cross, the man they call “Big Rig” is also looking to leave the sport in a better place than he found it.
Still in the prime of his career, his quiet leadership and role-model demeanor are setting the tone for those who come behind him.
Kaleb Barnum, who stunned with a second-place finish in Craigleith in just his eighth World Cup start, has seen it firsthand, along with Howden’s supportive nature to the new blood in Canadian ski cross.
“It could get pretty easy for the Canadian team to get complacent with winning, but it's hard to do what Reece and the rest of the team do in going up against the best in the world,” Barnum says.
“It's a culture of winning....and seeing him, and how he can take wins or losses and put them behind him and really just race and compartmentalize the good and the bad, that can be a huge thing.”
With a similar skiing style and imposing physical presence on the slopes, the 21-year-old Barnum has leaned on Howden’s approach, absorbing every moment the two are together, with hopes of becoming a consistent contender himself.
It’s all part of Howden’s hope for himself and the future — not only does he want to leave Canadian ski cross in a better place, but he also hopes to do so by example, continuing the winning culture within the sport for Canadians.
“Usually, the best leaders aren't thinking about being leaders. They're thinking about being role models and being the best people that they can be,” Howden says.
“If you imagine... Your current self is your 12-year-old self’s hero, and he's standing in that crowd: Whatever you do in that finish corral and on that race course, make sure you don't disappoint him. If you act accordingly, the results will come.”