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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story appears in the May 2013 edition of Women’s Pro Rodeo News, the official publication of the WPRA.

Yeah Hes Firen just hadn’t been himself.

Duke is one of the top barrel horses in ProRodeo, having guided Brittany Pozzi to Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifications and lots of money in recent years. But the 10-year-old gelding out of Spendid Discovery by Alive N Firen just hadn’t felt right to kick off the 2013 campaign.

That changed the first weekend in April when Duke led Brittany Pozzi to her second straight Ram National Circuit Finals Rodeo barrel racing championship in Oklahoma City.

Brittany Pozzi

“He felt outstanding,” Pozzi said of Duke on April 6. “It’s been a really hard winter. He’s been off and on and hurt and not hurt.”

It was a valuable rodeo, too. Pozzi won $19,125 for her take over the three-day competition; she also added a $20,000 voucher for a Ram pickup. The tournament-style format seemed to work quite well for the talented tandem. Pozzi finished fifth in the opening go-round, with her 15.61-second run being worth $997. She scored that time in the opening performance, then waited two days to run again.

But that final day was quite busy. Pozzi ran in the final preliminary performance, blistering the pattern in 15.42 seconds, finishing second in the go-round and second in the two-run average. That evening, she and Duke scored a 15.48 to win the semifinal round, then followed that with a 15.35 to win the championship.

“He’s coming back really strong,” Pozzi said of Duke.

Everything seems to be pointing in a positive direction for the two-time world champion from Victoria, Texas. But there were a lot of great things that happened over the five performances of ProRodeo’s national championship.

Theresa Walter of Billings, Mont., kick-started the rodeo with a 15.59-second run to take the early lead after the opening performance that began at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 4. That evening, the second half of the field of 24 competed, and that’s where the lead changed hands. Carlee Pierce, a two-time NFR qualifier from Stephenville, Texas, won the first round with a 15.42, pocketing $4,607 in the process.

She then kicked-off the second round with the fastest run of the RNCFR, posting a 15.25. In just two days, she earned $13,821.

“I think being first on the ground helped a little bit,” said Pierce, who ran her great horse, Rare Dillion, inside State Fair Arena. “He likes this arena. As many times as I can run in here the better.

“I just feel at home here. It’s a great set up.”

The format works

The Ram National Circuit Finals Rodeo features the top 24 circuit barrel racers in the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association – the year-end champions and the circuit finals champions from each of the 12 ProRodeo circuits; in case the year-end champion wins the circuit finale, the year-end runner-up earns the right to compete in Oklahoma City. In the Texas Circuit,  for example, Pierce won the year-end and the circuit finals, so Pozzi, as the No. 2 cowgirl in the year-end, qualified for the RNCFR.

Carlee Pierce

Because of the sheer numbers, each round is broken into two performances. There are great payouts in both go-rounds, but the key is that the top eight in the two-run aggregate qualify for the clean-slate semifinals – money is still tabulated, but the times are thrown out.

Pierce, Pozzi and Walter were joined by Nancy Hunter of Neola, Utah; Cindy Smith of Hobbs, N.M.; Barbara Merrill of Axtell, Utah; Pamela Capper of Cheney, Wash; and Lisa Lockhart of Oelrichs, S.D.

Pozzi won the round and was followed by finalists Hunter, 15.63; Pierce, 15.70; and Smith, 15.94. With less than an hour from semifinals to the finale, the girls kept their horses warmed up and got ready to attack the cloverleaf pattern again.

Pozzi and Duke rounded the pattern in 15.35 seconds, two-tenths of a second faster than Pierce, who finished runner-up to Pozzi for the second straight year. Smith finished third with a 15.59, while Hunter tipped a barrel to finish fourth.

Racing to the title

Pozzi has had great success over the last decade. She first qualified for the Wrangler NFR in 2003 at the age of 19.

In 2013 alone, she won Denver; San Angelo, Texas; Logandale, Nev.; Pocatello, Idaho; Red Bluff, Calif.; Riverdale, Calif.; Livermore, Calif.; Santa Maria, Calif.; Belle Fourche, S.D.; St. Paul, Ore.; Molalla, Ore.; Spanish Fork, Utah; Salt Lake City; Salinas, Calif.; Casper, Wyo.; and Sheridan, Wyo.

There aren’t many titles she hasn’t won, and she owns an outstanding pen of great barrel horses.

But there’s something about the Ram National Circuit Finals Rodeo that has caught Pozzi’s fancy.

“It pays great,” she said. “I did not know how awesome the Ram finals were until I made them last year. Now every year from now on I’ll make sure I make my circuit finals. It’s really awesome to be here.”

Chris Kirby fights a bull during a recent rodeo. Kirby will handle numerous tasks during the Will Rogers Stampede in Claremore, Okla., and will fight bulls with partner Clay Heger. (ROBBY FREEMAN PHOTO)

CLAREMORE, Okla. – By the time Chris Kirby is ready for bull riding at the Will Rogers Stampede, he will already be drenched in sweat from a full night’s worth of work tackling many of the behind-the-scenes duties that are involved in producing an event of this caliber.

It’s OK, though. It’s something in which Kirby takes great pride.

You see, the Kaufman, Texas, man is a professional bullfighter who will work alongside Clay Heger of Odessa, Texas, in keeping fallen bull riders out of harm’s way. That is their main job at Claremore’s rodeo, with three performances set for 7:45 p.m. Friday, May 24-Sunday, May 26, at Will Rogers Round Up Club Arena.

But they have many others with Pete Carr, owner of Carr Pro Rodeo and Pete Carr’s Classic Pro Rodeo, which will be providing livestock in Claremore for the first time in the rodeo’s 67 years.

“I’m just doing something I love to do,” said Kirby, 31.

Kirby will be in charge of hauling some of the best animal athletes to Claremore. Once on site, Kirby and Heger will work with other crewmates and members of the volunteer committee that produces the annual rodeo.

“We have a family atmosphere, and we all know what to expect with each other,” Kirby said. “I’ve just kind of jumped in there. If there’s a void that needs to be filled, I just go with it. We all try to make sure that what needs to get done gets done. It’s a smooth deal.

“If we do it all right, it looks effortless. Everybody has an understanding of what each of us does, and it’s a team effort.”

A longtime athlete, the Texas-born Kirby likened it to another professional sport.

“It’s no different than the Dallas Cowboys playing,” he said. “When they’re in the huddle and the play is called, everybody’s supposed to know their situation and know what they’re supposed to do. The offense drives down the field, and you score, just like you’re supposed to.

“There’s no one-man hero. We’ve got people who don’t mind going the extra step out of their way. We always make sure everybody’s got what they need.”

Kirby grew up competing in more traditional sports like baseball and football. His family cared for livestock, so he’d been around horses and cattle all his life, but it wasn’t until his early 20s that the man learned why rodeo gets in one’s blood.

“I played other sports, and really I didn’t know roping calves could pay you money,” he said. “I saw a buddy I went to college with fight bulls, and I thought I’d give it a try. The first one I ever got in front of ran me smack over. I got up and said, ‘Let’s do this again.’

That was a decade ago, and he’s been doing it ever since. In fact, he began taking it seriously just five years ago. In 2010, he became a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the top sanctioning body in the sport, and got involved with the Carr crew.

“It’s a job I get paid for that I really enjoy,” Kirby said. “I never really looked at it like it’s a dangerous job. It’s just what I do. And, really, I’m just as safe in that rodeo pen as if I’m driving down the highway.

“Plus you get to travel and you get to meet a lot of nice people doing it.”

Still, not many others get a chance to look in the eyes of a bull toting nearly a ton of kicking, spinning muscle. As a bullfighter, Kirby moves in once a bull rider comes off the animal, battling to get the bull’s attention, then using his natural athletic ability to get himself and all others in the arena out of harm’s way in the blink of an eye.

“It’s exhilarating,” he said. “It’s everything about it. It’s truly sensational to know there’s a wild animal right there that I’ve got a hold of that’s going to follow me wherever I go.

“I showed calves in high school, and it took me three or four months to get him to follow me so I could show him. All I have to do is be in the same pen as the bull, and he’ll follow me everywhere I go.”

While he works in front of thousands of fans at any given rodeo, Kirby tests his night on how little he is recognized in the arena. If he’s doing his job well and everybody stay’s out of harm’s way, then a bullfighter goes unnoticed. That’s his goal in Claremore, but that’s also his “working behind the scenes” personality.

“Going from amateur rodeos to the professional level, I didn’t realize the production of a good rodeo,” Kirby said. “It took me about a year to really see it, but what Pete wants and what we want is to have the kind of production where everybody that paid to be there got their money’s worth and then some. That’s our goal every time.”