When Hollister’s Haylie Stelling takes to the saddle, she plays country music on her iPhone, tucks it into her cowboy boot and rides toward a dream. The teen wants to be the first woman to compete in team roping at a professional level while also competing in barrel racing, the only rodeo event open to women at a professional level.
Haylie,15, and her sister, Sierra, 12, are competing in the California High School Rodeo Association District 4 Finals at the Bolado Park Fairgrounds on Saturday. The top five high school and junior high members to finish with the highest number of accumulated points from competitions throughout the year – including the district finals – will go on to compete at the state level.
Haylie and her partner, Dawson Bell, traveled to nationals in New Mexico last year to compete in team roping.
“She lives and breathes horses and the rodeo,” says her mom, Jimene Stelling.
One of the honors up for grabs at this year’s district finals is the Rookie Girls All Around title, given to the new member of the high school circuit who accumulates the most points by the end of the year.
“That’s just a one-time shot,” explains Jimene.
District 4 represents the counties of San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Contra Costa, Alameda and San Francisco. The district includes 17 junior high members and 44 high school students. Sierra is one of the 10 junior high school members from Hollister. Haylie is one of the 17 high school members who attend San Benito High School.
The phone tucked into Haylie’s boot plays her favorite song of the day, keeping her calm as she rides her horse, Squirt, around barrels set up in the practice arena at her home.
“Haylie, you don’t need to push it,” calls her mom from the sidelines.
“There’s no slow in his vocabulary,” the teenager replies.
The family’s dog, Odin, a roughly 150-pound Great Dane, rests his chin on the fence to watch the girls ride, before switching his gaze to a nearby goat. The Stellings live on a stretch of Spring Grove Road, where the pizza man always gets lost because the mailboxes are out of order. Their eight-acre parcel is home to 11 horses and eight Longhorn steers. On a typical day, Haylie comes home from school, turns on a song and heads to the arena to ride “til it’s dark,” she said.
“Just like you practice baseball or volleyball, you have to practice everyday,” she says.
For Haylie, the magic of the rodeo comes with adrenaline, the “little bit of danger in it” and the special bond she shares with her rodeo horses.
“There’s always a chance when you do barrels or poles, the ground is not quite right or your horse steps a little off and your horse falls on you,” she says.
Family ‘double life’
Haylie and her sister share a love of barrel racing, currently the only sport cowgirls can take to a professional level. For Sierra, the family’s “social butterfly” who also participates in soccer, track and cross country when she’s not on a horse, barrel racing is easily her favorite event.
“You get to go fast,” Sierra says.
“Yes, that’s what I figured you’d say,” replies Jimene with a laugh. “It’s all about the speed.”
For the Stellings, rodeos are a family tradition, as Jimene started team roping as a hobby in her teenage years and her husband, Marc, has also competed in his fair share of team roping and rodeo events. As a family, the Stellings boast an impressive collection of rodeo awards, including at least 50 belt buckles and 15 saddles. Haylie won at least 10 of those saddles and more than a dozen of those buckles.
The Stelling family lives a “double life” working respectively as a student, dance teacher and firefighter during the day and returning to the cowboy – or cowgirl life – in the evenings. Jimene has spent about 18 years teaching jazz and tap dance at Lana’s Dance Studio in Gilroy, and Marc is the fire captain at the Sunrise Fire Station in Gilroy.
But Jimene sees much more in the sport that has brought her family – and especially her young cowgirls – so many honors.
“It’s taught them responsibility and how to be competitive and take the losses with the wins,” says Jimene.
The community has poured out support to help the girls participate, with sponsors including B&T Farms, Creative Labels and Christopher Ranch in Gilroy, and John Ceglia, Red Eagle Chiropractic, Crop Production Services and Western Dove in Hollister.
While rodeo is often thought of as a man’s sport, Jimene has proudly watched all of the family’s three girls participate.
“Someone was like, ‘Don’t you want a boy?’ And I was like, ‘No, my girls are tough,’” she says, as she stands by the edge of the arena to watch her cowgirls practice. “These girls are tough.”
