WPRA NEWS

WPRA Junior World Champion Makayla Maddie Looking Forward to Future

By Kristen M. White

As she embarked on her senior year of high school, Makayla Maddie had two goals – to win the Florida High School Rodeo Association barrel racing title and to take home the Junior WPRA World championship.

Check, check.

“Each year I set little goals with my parents, and I chip away at them,” Maddie said. “Once I set a goal, I’ll do everything I can to achieve it.”

She had a bit of a balancing act to get to enough high school rodeos and also WPRA approved rodeos, but she made it happen. Winning a few chunks of money early in the year at WPRA rodeos helped a lot, she said.

Maddie, of Auburndale, Florida, ended the year with $21,151 in the junior world standings, after having attended 21 rodeos. The runner-up was Jada Sanchez also of Florida, with $12,765.

“I had to pick and choose which races I went to, which would be beneficial to me,” Maddie said. “I wouldn’t go if there wasn’t enough money added since we were also going to high school rodeos, and then I had to skip a few high school rodeos to go to bigger shows.”

Maddie gave kudos to her horse, Rossi. She’s got a few horses in the barn, but Rossi is the one she won all her money on and her high school rodeo title too.

“She’s 8 and I’ve been riding her for three or four years. Halfway through her futurity year I started running her and surprisingly, we got together pretty quickly,” Maddie said. “She’s really smart and very, very dependable. She only hit a couple of barrels in the past year and is very consistent.”

Clearly she has skills, passion and drive, but Maddie didn’t grow up in rodeo from early on. She was a gymnast but was getting a bit burned out, and after going on a trail ride during a family vacation, she fell in love with horses.

“I told my mom I wanted to ride horses, and I wanted to go fast right away. I had the intention of running barrels from the beginning,” Maddie said. “My mom got involved and we figured out what to do and got my first horse when I was 10.”

Maddie began competing at local jackpots and other rodeos, making her way through all the steps. She competed in high school rodeo her freshman year but said it wasn’t her year, so she concentrated on other events until her senior year.

“Winning the high school title my senior year felt really good to check off my list,” she said. “I want to have those accomplishments in my youth years, and to make that goal and finish it before I turned 18 was great.

“And luckily the high school rodeos end sooner than the WPRA season so then I could concentrate on the super shows.”

Winning the WPRA title was really exciting, she said, and although she didn’t attend the WPRA Finals and “have the full glory” of the title, she said she fully enjoyed achieving her second goal.

In October she bought and filled her permit at a barrel race in Jacksonville. Initially she thought about competing for the Rookie title, but has decided to focus on the colts she has at home and get them all up and running so she doesn’t have to put too much pressure on Rossi.

“I’m going to learn the ropes of rodeo because I’ve been a barrel race super show kind of racer, so figuring out all the entering and everything, I’ll stay close to home next year and hope I can jump in more next year.”

Maddie was dual enrolled in high school and college courses at her local college, and although she just graduated high school last May, she has nearly enough credits already for her associate’s degree, so she’s hoping to finish it this semester.

“I think I’ll maybe get a degree in something like finance, where it feels like I can’t go wrong,” she said. “I will do something besides just race horses since they’re so expensive, but I’m still on the journey to figure all of that out.”

(719) 447-4627
(719) 447-4631 (fax)