THE BRANDON SUN • WINTER FAIR • MARCH 2023
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unique.” But what may not always be clear to spectators is what it takes to compete in a high-speed discipline where your teammate is a 1,500-pound horse with a mind of its own. “If you’ve got the nerve to run, well, then you can run. It takes a lot of guts and confidence in yourself to be able to go out there and run a horse full blast through a pat- tern,” Johnston said. “And never mind running, you gotta turn it too, and stop it, and stay on.” The key to being a suc- cessful barrel racer isn’t just about guts or an expensive horse. “Good horseman- ship pays off,” Johnston said. And the story of John- ston’s horse certainly illus- trates that point. Johnston bought the little buckskin mare with good bloodlines and a good price as a four- year-old from an ad she saw posted on Facebook three years ago. “Nobody wanted her because she was little,” Johnston says. But the first competition Johnston took her to, the mare won $1,000. Then she won a division in the fair last year. And later that year at the MBRA finals at the Keystone Centre the mare ran her fastest time, finish- ing the pattern galloping with her legs and nose out- stretched like a racehorse in 14.45 seconds. Back home in Ontario, Johnston has a barn of nine horses and tries to help any riders out if they want it. She does it for free because of the things she enjoys most about competing at the fair is seeing people she knows or helped at some point in their career, even if that means that her com- petition is 20 years younger than her. “If people want to become better at their horsemanship or better riders or whatever they’re
More sponsors that in- crease the prize money in competitions and more op- portunities for kids to get involved in barrel racing at a younger age and work their way up has the sport of barrel racing growing, said Charmain Grad, presi- dent of the Manitoba Barrel Racing Association. Horses can be specially bred for the spot, with some of the best horses from the top breeding lines being sold for tens of thousands of dollars. “There’s still an op- portunity for people to do it as a hobby. But now there’s also beginning to be an op- portunity for people to do this as a career,” said Grad. “And I think that’s huge.” For spectators, barrel racing can be an exciting event to watch, even for those who aren’t familiar with equestrian sports. The pattern and rules of barrel racing are easy to under- stand and since barrel rac- ers compete against the clock, the crowd can be on the edge of their seats, es- pecially when competitors times can be milliseconds apart. “You can really get a crowd involved with it. The crowd just builds on it and feeds off the energy and then your contestants can feed off that energy as well,” said Grad. Spectators also get the chance to see barrel racing in the same place as show jumping, hackney, and heavy horse events — dis- ciplines that would never share the same roof in the horse world. “It’s one of the few times that we can actually combine barrel racing and jumping at the same place, it’s not very of- ten that spectators can see both in the same facility at the same time to get a grasp on both disciplines,” Grad said. “That really makes it
Johnston rides Hustle around her property in Murillo, Ont. (Submitted)
doing, point they’re at, then I work with them and bring them along so that they become really good and hopefully beat me,” she says. whatever Despite the long drive and the work involved with barn chores at home, a knee replacement, and hauling her horse between prov-
inces to compete, Johnston shows no sign of giving up barrel racing or her visits to Brandon every year. “It keeps me in shape and keeps me going,” she said.
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