Young competitor dominates junior rodeo
Cheyenne Rey uses just four words to explain her love of
competing atop a horse in junior rodeo events:
”
I like going fast.
”
The 12-year-old seventh-grader at Willow Grove School gets a big
smile when she talks about competing, as she has done
– and done well – since she was just 4.
Young competitor dominates junior rodeo
Cheyenne Rey uses just four words to explain her love of competing atop a horse in junior rodeo events: “I like going fast.”
The 12-year-old seventh-grader at Willow Grove School gets a big smile when she talks about competing, as she has done – and done well – since she was just 4.
“It gives me a rush and I like to do it,” said Cheyenne, who first rode a horse on her own when she was just 2 and has since won more than a dozen saddles and more than 50 buckles in rodeo competitions.
She keeps most of her trophies in a glass case in the living room of her family’s Paicines home and pictures adorn her bedroom walls.
Cheyenne won the DP Ranch saddle at last weekend’s annual San Benito County Fair Junior Rodeo, winning the all-around cowgirl award for the 9 to 12 age group for the fourth year in a row.
During a break from competition at the Bolado Park event, Cheyenne mentions how she competes nearly every weekend at venues from Plymouth to Reno, often going up against people well more than twice her age in barrel racing and team roping competitions.
She is “not scared but very nervous” before her events, and competing against adults is rewarding, Cheyenne said, because “It feels good because you can kinda run with the big dogs, you know?”
Cheyenne estimates that she spends no less than three hours a day riding around the 200-acre ranch on which her family lives and raises 13 horses, including three that she uses in competition.
“They’re like my best friends,” Cheyenne said of her horses, named Viper, Zip, and Hot Shot. “They are so well-minded and always trustworthy. You can never go wrong on them.”
That’s not to say there haven’t been close calls, like when she fell off the back of a horse while warming up for a competition, was knocked out and had to go to the hospital. Cheyenne was wearing a green shirt at the time, so she has since pledged to never wear that color again, since it is her “bad luck color.”
However, she was not afraid to get back in the saddle, because that fuels her love of competing – and winning.
“It’s so exciting, I don’t know how to explain it,” said Cheyenne, rattling off her list of events; “barrels, poles, goats, keyhole, single stake, ribbon roping, breakaway, team roping, and rescue race.”
Cheers from the crowd also get her going: “It gives you butterflies; not nervous butterflies but happy butterflies,” Cheyenne said.
Dina Cabral, Cheyenne’s mom, says her daughter has been all about horses since she was a toddler.
“It’s all she did was play with horses,” Cabral said. “She had toy horses all over her room, just like I did. When I’d ride my horse she’d get in the front of me when she was about a year old and we’d ride around the ranch.”
Eventually, Cabral put Cheyenne on a pony and led her around the ranch.
Today, Cheyenne is doing the pulling.
“She just wants to do it all the time,” Cabral said. “She’s dragging me out the door.”
The all-day competitions, particularly the local ones, are a bonding experience for family and friends alike.
“You can make new friends super easy because everybody here likes horses,” said Cheyenne, who plans to be a large animal veterinarian when she gets older. “If you like what you do you have something in common. Today I was riding the horse past all the trailers and everybody I went by said ‘Hi, Cheyenne.’ I didn’t pass one person I didn’t know.”
Cabral said “everyone knows everyone” at junior rodeo events, which adds to the family atmosphere. Beyond that, her daughter is friends with young people who have a lot of responsibility and a respect for tradition.
“It takes a lot of hard work,” Cheyenne said. “You have to feed the horses, exercise them on a daily basis, and just give them what they need. Competing also helps me learn from my mistakes.”
In addition to her daughter’s competitive spirit, Cabral said she is particularly proud of Cheyenne’s selflessness after winning two of her commemorative saddles at the annual county fair junior rodeo.
When Cheyenne won the Gina Taliaferro and Tommy Martin memorial saddles in 2005 and 2006, respectively, she gave the saddles to those families.
“I thought it would be nice to give them a saddle so they’d have a memory” of their children, Cheyenne said. Taliaferro was her mom’s best friend and Martin was her cousin.
Riding and roping are big pieces of the history of San Benito County, which is not lost on the young competitors and their families.
“It’s a piece of history,” Cabral said. “It’s keeping the tradition of the cowboy alive.”
