New event under way in prep rodeo

Staff writer

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New event, same camaraderie.

link Staff photo: Kevin Wilson

Sophomore Lauren Kelsey makes a run during the New Mexico High School Rodeo Association reined cowhorse competition at the Curry County Events Center Friday.

That was the name of the game Friday night as reined showhorse competitors lined up outside the ring at Curry County Events Center for a leisurely-paced event.

The event, in its first year on the high school and junior high competition level, requires a rider taken their horse through a patterned course, then handle a single cow along the edges and the middle of the arena. Riders and horses are scored on accuracy, timing and responsiveness.

Opening competitor Ralf Lesueur, a senior at Quemado, also does saddle bronc riding and team roping. He said the Friday event was a change of pace.

“It’s kind of new,” Lesueur said. “You haven’t seen it happen.”

The three-day rodeo brings about 200 high school and junior high competitors, and their families, to Clovis this weekend from all parts of New Mexico, and some other parts too.

Junior Tyllor Ledford might get a few looks from people guessing her New Mexico residence with a 4-H champion saddle that says La Plata County. She explains she’s from Durango, Colorado, and chooses to compete in New Mexico rather than put her horses through Colorado’s topography.

No matter the state, Ledford has always enjoyed the sport.

“I’ve always enjoyed riding with horses, and having my family riding here,” said Ledford, whose sixth-grade brother Cody also competes. “We all get in the truck, we’ll drive for hours. It’s what we do together. Also, I like to ride, and competition gives riding a purpose.”

As with all of the events this weekend, athletes are competing to be one of the top four finishers after the June 5-6 state finals to get an invite to their respective national finals rodeo — high school from July 12-18 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and junior high from June 21-27 in Des Moines, Iowa.

The rodeo, which starts at 9 a.m., should last much of the day with high school and junior high events combined.

Throughout the event, competitors were usually not competitors but friends. With short routines and plenty of idle time, the kids would talk about prom dates, upcoming rodeos, previous successes and hilarious failures and the dumb things their siblings posted on Facebook.

“That’s a lot of it,” Lesueur said of the camaraderie. “You get to hang out with friends, talk to girls, have fun. Well, maybe not talk to girls, because I do have a girlfriend.”