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Competing With A World Champion In Mississippi | A Horse Story
By: Melissa Gros
For six years, I have been competing in the NBHA (National Barrel Horse Association). For those entire six years, I have wanted to do nothing but compete at the Youth World Championships held in Jackson, Mississippi. I started out on just and old mare that ended up not entering into the arena after a back accident one year. I then got thrown onto anyone’s horse that would let me ride, never placing consistently in any one division. My dream became to compete at “World” to prove to myself and everyone else that I was good enough to do it!
One afternoon, my trainer, Paula Stephenson, called me to say that she had found a horse if I wanted to try her out. I agreed, not knowing what I was getting myself into. When I went and looked at the mare for the first time I was beside myself. How was a horse this skinny, this ugly, and this homely looking going to be a barrel horse. But, from the moment I saw her, I fell in love with her.
A week later, I started riding her and training her to run barrels. The first time I rode her, she wouldn’t do a thing I asked her to. She wouldn’t walk in a circle, she wouldn’t turn to the left, she wouldn’t turn to the right, and she definitely wasn’t getting out of a walk. The more I rode, the better she got to be and before long we were walking a barrel pattern. Not wanting to “push” her too hard, I trained her for two solid years.
When we started hauling her to a few shows, I wanted more. The dream of running with the “big girls” came back to my head. After riding her for another year, I thought I was ready to compete. I rode hard the season of 2000 hoping for a spot in the top five. On the last show of the year, I was sitting fourth when a couple of contenders rode two horses instead of their normal one and it knocked me out of placing altogether.
Being that the season of 2001 would be my last year to run in the youth division, I knew that if I didn’t place this year I would never get to go. Every show we made was closer to end. I just kept saying, “One down, seventeen to go”, and so on. When it came down to the final show I knew I had to place or I wouldn’t get to go to “Youth World”. I ended up placing fifth that night, but I wasn’t quite sure that I had inched my way in there. Two days later our district director, Marshall Modisette, called to tell me that I had qualified to go. I was so excited that tears came to my face immediately.
My dream had finally come true after that long of riding and waiting. I am happy to say that in the last week of July 2002, I competed with the “big girls” in the Youth World Championship show that I had waited so long to get to. The biggest accomplishment of all was that my little mare, Uno Better, that looked so “homely” the first day that I saw her was the one that did it all. With me on her back she ran that barrel pattern just as well as any other horse out there. Even though we didn’t place I am still the happiest young lady in the world. Even though it’s nice to do so, I don’t have to win every time I enter into an arena and run. It’s the satisfaction of knowing that I am good enough to do it and showing to everyone that a little hometown country-girl like me can accomplish a very big dream when I set my mind to it!
