09/02/2026
5 Hundredths
Faster than the blink of an eye.
Thatโs how much time it took to change the way I looked at this sport.
My senior year of high school, I tore my ACL. In August, I had ACL reconstruction, and I went to college wearing a brace that stretched from my hip to my ankle. I had to sit out my first year of college rodeo.
Sitting on the sidelines gave me a lot of time to think.
I knew the runs that had made in high school werenโt going to be enough at the college level. So while I couldnโt compete, I started studying.
When I was released to rodeo again in December, I bought a new horse and started training her for a hanging dismount. There was just one problem. There werenโt goat tying jackpots where I could test new techniques, work through mistakes, and season a green horse.
So I joined the NLBRA and spent the spring competing.
I was rebuilding more than a knee.
I was working through the mental blocks that can come after an injury. I was changing techniques. I was training a horse. And, probably without realizing it at the time, I was beginning to understand goat tying on a completely different level.
I qualified for the NLBFR, and I came incredibly close to the fairy-tale comeback but at nationals my very green horse cut in front of me on all three runs.
I missed winning a National Championship by 5 hundredths of a second.
At the time, I was heartbroken.
What I couldnโt know then was that losing by .05 would eventually become the catalyst for so many wins.
Five hundredths taught me to respect every tick of the clock.
It taught me that an unnecessary step matters. The smallest inefficiencies, repeated throughout a run, become tenths of a second. And at a high level, tenths are enormous.
For more than 30 years, with the help of some incredibly driven and coachable kids, an uncountable number of videos analyzed, and thousands upon thousands of hours in the practice pen, we have worked to identify those little extra ticks of the clock.
Not simply to create a run that is fast once B
But to develop a system that can be fast consistently.
Years ago, I never imagined I would see a 5-second goat tying run. Now I get to watch multiple girls make them. I donโt think I will ever get tired of seeing one.
But maybe the greatest lesson from that National Finals wasnโt about getting faster at all. If I had won that National Championship, I might have missed the lesson.
As a coach, I live to watch kids achieve the goals theyโve worked so hard for. I love celebrating the wins with them. But when they lose, Iโm right there too. Helping them study it, learn from it, and figure out what it can teach them.
Because Iโve learned that some of the greatest growth doesnโt come from the runs where everything goes right. It comes from the ones that hurt. The ones that make you ask questions. The ones that send you back to the practice pen determined to understand why.
Sometimes the difference between the moment you prayed for and heartbreak is only 5 hundredths of a second.
And sometimes, years later, you realize the loss gave you something the win never could have.
I believe God doesnโt make mistakes.
I didnโt get the championship I wanted that day.
But looking back over the last 30 years, I can see that He gave me a lesson I would spend a lifetime passing on to others.
And that lesson has been worth far more than any national championship.
