MOSES LAKE – Many hours of paintings reduced to seconds on Saturday.
“Every competitor runs the time,” said Jamie Quillan, president of Columbia Basin Barrel Racing Club.
She goes out to the 3 blue barrels spaced aside sitting on the floor in an internal triangle of the Kenny Ardell Pavilion at the Grant County Fairfloors on Saturday, the same route on which runners will take part in the national final rodeo.
In a year in which, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, many rodeos and equestrian events were cancelled, the barrel racing club made a decision and a decision to organize this occasion, the NFR Winter Classic. He’s attracted horses, and passengers from all over the Pacific Northwest. But once back, thanks to the pandemic, the occasion was closed to the public.
According to Quillan, a trained horse and rider will be able to complete this course in about 14 seconds.
“There is a trend of clover leaves, one on the right and two on the left or two on the left and one on the right,” Quillan said. “The fastest wins. “
“The competitor wins, ” he corrected.
Quillan didn’t want to worry. While the barrel race is an open rodeo occasion for men and women, almost all runners accumulated at the fairgrounds on Saturday were women.
It is an occasion designed to check the combined athletic talents of the horse and rider, and it takes a lot of training, many paintings together, for a racing team.
Most of the ride in 14 to 19 seconds, depending on the force with which the horse and rider can avoid a barrel.
“It takes a lot to prepare a horse,” said Tami Deines, 28, a former coulee City rodeo queen who also ran barrels. “They want to be fed, they want exercise, they want to exercise and be in shape. You also want to exercise and condition yourself, mentally and physically; you have to have compatibility and they also have to have compatibility. “
That’s why he didn’t run on Saturday, Deines. Su the horse has torn apart and wants time to recover.
“It may hurt them, ” he said of the race with a wounded horse, “and you don’t have to do that. “
As intelligent top athletes, those riders and their horses exercise to the fullest every day, helping the horse and rider to be informed of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, so they can paint together.
“It takes a little training; other people spend a lot of time and miles healing their horses,” Quillan said. “Go to clinics, get help, be trained, lots of blood, sweat and tears to do a horse function. “
It is also that the maximum of those competitors lead to the maximum while walking.
“I’ve been riding since I was two years old,” said Alecia Fox, 26, who came to Moses Lake from Hermiston, Orepassn, while standing with her horse Icon. “We spent almost every weekend there, even though winter slows down a little bit due to the weather. “
“We have seven horses at home and it’s a full-time pastime outside of our work,” Fox added.
Charles H. Featherstone can be columbiabasinherald. com.