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The Sanpete High School rodeo club has been successful and continues to grow a tight knit community. The product has been well trained athletes that have proven to do well in competitions.
Cody Nielson
It had begun like any other ride; he had done this countless times before. The adrenaline and nerves pumped through his body as he anticipated the gate opening. With the snap of the latch the bucking horse emerged from the chute trying to toss the rider, but he held on, lasting eight seconds. The whistle blew, signaling the ride was over, and the rider lost his seat and slid off, landing on his knee. It felt weird, different then usual, almost like a dead leg.
With everything in him he tried to get back up, like all the good riders do, but couldn’t. A lump in his upper leg almost resembling a second knee stuck out from under the skin.
Senior Cody Nielsen immediately knew something was wrong, he waved over his dad and uncle, within seconds he was surrounded by people wanting to help.
The minutes dragged on as the pain increased waiting for flashing lights to appear, the EMT’s came running over. Nielson was focusing all his effort into breathing.
It was a six month recovery from his femur fracture before Nielson was back on a horse. Mentally he was still in recovery, the first couple times back on the horse, he rode scared, eventually getting hung up a few times and breaking his finger. However, after pushing through the mental block Nielson started to ride like himself again.
“I just kept getting on, trying to get better,” Nielson said. “The one John Wayne quote kept coming to mind, ‘Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyways.’”
Nielson is a bareback rider who travels all over for rodeo, even competing at the national finals where he took fifth overall. Nielson started getting into rodeo about two years ago. He loves every part of rodeo, even the parts that aren’t so easy. His friends have had a big influence on his dedication to the sport.
“Just hanging out with the guys, just winning, kickin butt,” Nielson said.
He also likes working with animals, even though they can get a little out of hand.
“Sometimes they won’t cooperate, like you’ll have chute fighting horses that lay on you and smash you in the chute – it gets stressful sometimes,” Nielsen said. “They’ll bite you, kick you, I’ve been bit a few times.”
Nielson has big dreams and hopes to one day make it to the National Finals Rodeo.
“[Bareback riding is] just a lot of fun, I also want to prove all the people that said I couldn’t do it wrong,” Nielson said. “It’s 90% mental and 10% physical.”
Skylee Millett
Sophomore Skylee Millett also shares the passion for rodeo. Millett does barrel racing, pole bending, goat tying, breakaway roping, and team roping. She has been to Little Britches Finals nine times in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
“A lot of people say their sport is their hobby but rodeo is a lifestyle,” Millett said. “You wake up livin’ it and you go to bed livin’ it, you have to take care of your animals the same way you’d want to be treated.”
Millett began training when she was three and fell in love with rodeo, now on average she spends five to seven hours a day training with her animals. Different from high school mandatory practices, Millett has always been the one to push herself to work hard. Her desire and drive has helped her work through the slumps and come back stronger.
“I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, but it is 100 percent hard work,” Millett said.
Just like Nielson, part of her training goes beyond the horse’s physical exercise. Millett has found ways to mentally train and prepare for competitions, with the help of mentality coaches.
“You focus on the good you did and not what you did wrong,” Millet said. “You acknowledge what you did wrong but you don’t hyperfixate on it.”
Kortlyn Brotherson
Junior Kortlyn Brotherson has been riding horses her whole life and got into rodeo after her father decided she could control a horse in 2020. Brotherson competes in barrels, poles, breakaway, and reining cow. She recently placed 4th out of 100 other barrel racers in Salina, UT. Going to the Junior National Finals Rodeo and battling in State for school rodeo, each competition takes her one step closer to a professional level.
“People say that rodeo is a sport and I say that rodeo is its own category with its own events,” Brotherson said. “Rodeo is rodeo and there’s nothing that can compare to that because of the physical and mental.”
Brotherson sacrifices five to ten hours a day in training. Her schedule is set up to allow her to train every other full day of school.
“When it comes to rodeo, it’s all just me and myself,” Brotherson said. “If I want to win and I truly want it, then I have to put in that time and work on my own time and I have to find that time.”
The psychology behind horses has interested Brotherson and helped her understand that she must first calm her nerves when entering into a competition. A horse’s heart will begin to sync with the rhythm of the rider’s heart rate, thus causing a fast beating nervous heart, to affect the horse’s performance.
“It’s not a verbal connection, and it’s not actions, it’s just a feeling.” Brotherson said, “They have to trust you, and you become the horse’s words, so you have to learn how your horse behaves to know when something is wrong.”
Brotherson has found that going on trail rides in the mountains acts as a mental reset for not only her, but the horse as well. The rides help them break away from the pattern of training and renew their hardworking efforts to just ride and enjoy themselves.
“It really reminds you of why you do it rather than just doing it to do it,” Brotherson said.
