CLAREMORE, Okla. – Brittany Pozzi knows a little something about horsepower. She’s a two-time world champion barrel racer who used three great horses to win the gold buckle last season.
On Sunday night, the Victoria, Texas, cowgirl rode Yeah Hes Firen to a 17.70-second run on the final performance of the Will Rogers Stampede to finish in third place. But how fast is the horse known as Duke?
The 7-year-old gelding out of Splendid Discovery out of Alive N Firen slipped on a turn around a barrel and still finished just 13-100ths of a second out of first place. Not too bad for a horse that hasn’t been run that much this season.
“I ran him two weeks ago, and he was pretty rusty,” said Pozzi, a six-time qualifier to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. “Tonight he smoked three barrels, and he felt good even though he slipped.”
Pozzi collected a check worth $1,144 in Claremore and has earned more than $61,000 so far this season. Susan Kay Smith of Hodgen, Okla., won the event with a 17.57, earning $1,601, while Jessi Eagleberger of Stringtown, Okla., finished at 17.67 for third and $1,372. But the champ’s win in northeastern Oklahoma is a little help en route to defending her 2009 title in the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association, the sanctioning body for barrel racing in ProRodeo.
“I’m not really going to defend anything, because rodeo doesn’t work like that,” she said. “I’ve focused a lot on my futurity colts, but now that we’re getting into it, I’ll turn my focus to rodeoing.”
The futurities and derbies are the proving ground for the younger horses, and training those and getting them seasoned is a big part of Pozzi’s work. But she’s also got an outstanding squad of proven mounts, like Stitch and Cosmo. Stitch is a 13-year-old gelding that has been her No. 1 horse for a few years, and Cosmo is a 6-year-old mare that won a tour rodeo in Lovington, N.M., last season.
“I’ve pretty much got the finals made, which is pretty nice,” she said. “It’s not like I’m not going to try to go into the finals in the top spot, but it’s nice that I’m in the position I’m in.”
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