Ashley Whyland on Luther
St. Charles, MO is right outside of St. Louis, MO. I hauled there with 3 other girls. I always check the weather before I head out, even though it’s bright and sunny where you’re at, doesn’t mean it’s going to be that way where you’re going. Clear skies and cold all weekend, it was the middle of winter. It was an all girls trip. We were all excited to be going. Annie Peterson and Annie Hyde had both been to St. Charles. Lindsey Hance and I had not. Lindsey had just come along for the ride on this one. I believe she was in between horses at the time. They said it was a small pen, decent ground, blind first barrel. Pretty much what we had been used to all winter.
We arrived a couple hours early. We went to the girls locker room and got our hair fixed, rodeo “rags” on and put some makeup on. I had left the house in pair of tennis shoes, WHERE WERE MY BOOTS?? They were nowhere to be found, I had left them at home. Lindsey had brought an extra pair, but her foot was a size bigger than mine. Whatever works! So I walked around with my boots flopping on my feet! Charming!
The secretary that we paid our fees to asked Annie if she would be interested in being the feature cowgirl for the opening ceremonies. She reluctantly agreed. Annie was a 7 time Great Lakes Circuit Finals qualifier and the champion in 1999. She was also afraid of heights.
After sitting around bored and grooming our horses, we discovered that MANY people had been walking through this one lone door and we wondered what was back there. So, the “curious girls” decided we were just going to bust in and see what it was all about. Little did we know, the party had been going on without us. Jack Daniels had sponsored free alcohol and tons of snacks. All of the sponsors were walking around introducing themselves. OF COURSE, we had spent a whole hour bored out of our minds and grooming on our horses.
We participated in the grand entry and immediately following that was when Annie was to be presented as the “Feature Cowgirl”. They told her to climb up the bucking chutes and stand on a 2×4 that was rested atop the chutes. She said, No way! I told her to go ahead and she would be fine. I told her not to lock her legs and don’t look down. Reluctantly she climbed up as they blacked the lights. Then a spotlight was pointed right at her. I couldn’t help but bust out laughing when I looked at her face. She was getting ready to puke. No smile, she was as nervous as she could be. They spent their time really talking her up and mid-sentence she ducked down and off the chutes. So they had to hurry up and take the spot light off from her. She then told me that she was NEVER doing that again.
We then had to each walk out into the arena lined with fire while they presented each contestant and where they were from.
Our time to run had come and we were all up in the performance. We had all buddied together so we ran back to back. Annie’s horse had been acting really weird while we were grooming them. Every time she would try to touch him, he would pin his ears and try to kick her. But we couldn’t find anything physically wrong with him, he was just acting evil. She was up first. Of course, the spotlight was on her since they had talked her up so much during the opening ceremonies. She went hauling in to the first barrel and he sat to turn and then bounced left and flew up the wall. I couldn’t believe Annie stayed on. I have to give her credit. That horse made a HUGE move and she stayed in the middle.
I was next. Although I was distracted by what had just happened, I had to pull myself together and make my run. Luther was ready to go, I wasn’t. He came flying into the first barrel and we were at the wrong angle. We hit it and then that caused him to bow off the backside. I decided to go ahead and make my run. Of course, he had a great second barrel and a great third barrel.
Anne was next. She had a great run to place 9th at the rodeo. My time would have placed, but knocked barrels get ya nothing!
We got the horses ready, gathered up our things and hit the door, only to find the whole parking lot was FULL of snow and it was coming down hard. We loaded the boys into the trailer and headed out. I had 5 missed calls on my cell phone. I called my mother back to find out that there was a freak snowstorm that had hit St. Louis. It was totally unexpected.
We decided we couldn’t wait it out, since it was coming down so hard. There was no place to keep the horses overnight. I have to say, it was pretty stupid of us. Cars were literally sliding all over the roads. And we were in a loaded rig.
What took us 5 hours to get there, took us almost 12 hours to get home. We were worn out. The snow never stopped. Of course, we travelled WITH the direction of the weather. So by the time the storm blew over, we had about 8 inches in Indiana. So much for clear skies…
Oh yeah, a side note: Annie took her horse to the vet the following week to find out that he had tore a muscle in his stomach. He had a slip on the ice the week before and they were pretty sure that is what caused it.
Bad luck, hard luck or no luck….whatever you call it, we didn’t have any good luck that weekend!
