From the little wooden sound box, located to the left of the chute, “Austyn Campbell, you are next on deck,” bellows from the speakers. It is 9 a.m., and the sun has barely began to heat up the day. The nervous impatient woman sits atop her eager gelding just waiting for the alarm to sound and for the gate to open. Her eyes flutter back and forth, staring from the calf to the gate and then forward once more.
The pocket-sized calf anticipates for his rope to break free so he can get a clean runaway. There is a fear and intensity in his eyes as he looks from the horse to the gate and back again. The buzzer thunders and the chute gate flies open signaling for the rider and her lively stead to exit the cramped quarters of where their drive was caged.
Gravity takes off out the wide open doorway and bolts at the calf. Campbell, lasso in hand, winds back and around again till she has the perfect bend in her rope. Three more clean and concise whips about her head help her to form the ideal noose. Once more she whips the coil of rope around about two feet above her head. When the lasso is in impeccable circumference and Gravity is gaining on the calf she releases her hold of the snare and guides it faultlessly through the air.
Campbell, a rider for the Pierce College Rodeo Team does not spend her weekends like most eighteen year old girls; then again most 18-year-old girls do not spend their Saturday mornings roping calves and making their rounds through a triangle of barrels.
Campball has been riding horses since she was 9 years old, when she became a member of the California Rangers Mounted Drill Team. California Rangers is a non-profit, youth organization that teaches children horsemanship, leadership and discipline.
The California Rangers Eagle Troop that Campbell competed with for four years competes nationally. They have won many national championship competitions and were No. 1 in the nation for the last four years.
“I have always loved horses ever since I was little,” Campbell hollered over her shoulder as she swung her leg over her horses’ back and planted her seat in the saddle. “But it wasn’t until my sister joined California Rangers that I got involved with actually riding them.”
Campbell reminisced about her time in the California Rangers and explained, “Rangers taught me respect, responsibility, leadership and how to be a good teammate.”
Campbell knew rodeo was her dream, when “For my 17th birthday my sister and brother got me a roping lesson as a present, I fell in love.”
That one roping lesson was what convinced Campbell that rodeo was what she wanted to do.
“When I heard I had a chance to do high school rodeo I knew I had to take it, I loved Rangers but it was time for a change and it was time for a new chapter in my life and in my riding. I was really just looking for something to push me outside my comfort zone,” she said.
Meanwhile, back at the rodeo, the rope flies through the air straight for the calf, the audience stares in apprehension, wondering if Campbell caught her runaway and Campbell, with a look of hope and fear, watches as the rope catches up with the speedy and agile animal.
“Riding a horse in general can be difficult because you are trying to connect with a 1,000-pound animal,” Campbell said while her horse dances around waiting to go into the next event. “But in rodeo, especially team roping, you have five completely different minds trying to achieve different goals. The steer is trying to get away from you. Your horse is trying to please you. Your partner is trying to catch one end while you are trying to catch the other and accomplish all of this in under 10 seconds in order to place.”
All of those things are contributing factors of whether or not Campbell and her roping partner, Meg McNamara, will even place, which can put a lot of stress on them.
“There have been multiple occasions where Campbell and I could have gotten hurt,” McNamara said. “In team roping, there are three animals to control and all of these animals are unpredictable.”
Campbell recalls this happening in the past. “One practice day at Eagles we were going through a cross and two girls collided, resulting in one of them dropping the flag they were carrying,” she said. “That caused my horse to spook and rear up and hit me in the face, I had a minor concussion, a fractured nose and a deviated septum. I had to have two surgeries because of it.”
Cheyenne Davenport, one of Campbell’s former teammates from Eagles witnessed the incident when Campbell was injured.
“The day Campbell broke her nose was ridiculous. Earlier that day a man fatally crashed his motorcycle just outside of our practice arena,” Davenport said. “We saw it happen, which was already traumatizing. Just after that Campbell broke her nose. We couldn’t believe all the bad things after practice. We ended practice right after she left for the hospital.”
These inquiries happen everyday in the horse industry. According to riders4helmets.com, approximately 78,000 people were injured in 2007 in equine-related incidents. Those statistics do not stop Campbell or thousands of other women who experience the same feeling of adrenaline when they step into an arena.
There are more difficulties in rodeo than just the injuries.
“At one of the first rodeos, I caught my horse’s tail, and Austyn roped her horse’s front feet. Ropes and horses do not always go well together,” McNamara explained.
In the meantime, back in the arena, just as the calf lifts his head in a show of arrogant success, the lasso falls gracefully about his neck and traps him, securing his place cinched to her saddle. Gravity slams on the breaks and Campbell sits firmly in her saddle waiting for the rope to break free.
“Campbell has taught me to always be the best teammate you can be, because no matter what is going on in your life it’s never enough to be an excuse to let your team down,” said Davenport, who was Campbell’s teammate for four years.
Campbell shared her first rodeo horse KC, the teammate that has had the greatest impact.
“He taught me more things about myself and riding than I could ever imagine. He was definitely a little spitfire,” Campbell said as she reminisces about her lost friend. “My first time ever getting on him he would not stop rearing, I did not trust that he would ever be able to calm down, but to my amazement he ended up being my all around horse and I won a lot of events on him.”