An Okotoks barrel racer doesn’t need any counseling despite the fact she is almost relieved not to be returning to the Calgary Stampede this year.
Barrel racer Lauren Byrne will be too busy working on her master’s degree in counseling at Mount Royal University when the 100th Calgary Stampede runs in early July.
“I am working on a master’s degree on-line right now,” Byrne said. “But I have a three-week commitment in Calgary which involves face-to-face stuff in July, so the Stampede wouldn’t have worked, so not being invited (for the Stampede) has kind of worked out.”
So far Byrne, 27, who has a degree in psychology from the University of Saskatchewan, has been able to handle her studies and the heavy travel schedule of the Canadian pro rodeo circuit.
“Up until this point it has been okay,” she said. “But after next week things get quite busy (with barrel racing). I will try to take it one day at a time and hopefully things will work out.”
She said she is quite organized and plans out each day to include studies and working out with her 16-year-old horse Macho. She has to be organized because barrel racers spend truck-driver like hours on the highway when they are competing and Byrne isn’t too optimistic about studying on the road.
“Unfortunately, I suffer from motion sickness now and then,” she said with a laugh. “So I don’t really want to be reading while we are driving.”
Although she won’t be going to the Stampede — she made it to Showdown Sunday last year — Byrne wants to get back to the Canadian Finals Rodeo (CFR) in November by finishing in the top 12 in the 2012 Canadian Pro Rodeo Association standings. Byrne was 15th last year among barrel racers eligible for the CFR.
“Last year, I just hit too many barrels,” said Byrne who qualified for the CFR in 2008 and 2010. “My strategy is try to have a clean run everywhere I go. If I can keep the barrels up, I think I can be successful.”
She is off to a good start in 2012.
She was second in both the Camrose and Coleman rodeos and seventh in the Medicine Hat Rodeo giving her enough cash winnings to be in second-place in the CPRA standings as of May 15.
Macho ran well at the Stavely Rodeo on May 10, but the master’s degree student admitted she outsmarted herself.
“I was trying to be smart and I over-thought things,” Byrne said. “The sunlight is so bright outside the arena and the barrel was so dark that I thought I could just edge my way up into the arena and let my horse’s eyes adjust. In hindsight, I should have just went for it.”
Byrne knocked over two barrels in Stavely.
It’s important for her to make hay in the spring before some of the big guns, such as 2011 Word Champion Lindsay Sears, start going full bore on the Canadian circuit.
“Our entries increase and the Americans start coming up when the bigger money rodeos start,” Byrne said. “It is definitely nice to capitalize in the spring, that was definitely one of my goals.”
She is even capitalizing on the spring showers.
“A rainy day like today allows me to spend the full day working on my school,” Byrne said on May 17. “Last year, I would have been going: ‘Oh no, it’s raining, I won’t be able to ride.’”
The Stavely rodeo was won by Okotoks’ Adele Hansen who sits in third place in the CPRA standings as of May 15.
