Louie took the pressure and ran with it all the way to a first-place time of 13.84 seconds, topping reserve winners Nellie Williams and Rebas Smokey Joe by eight hundredths of a second.
“I’m ecstatic,” Lockhart said. “I couldn’t believe it when they announced my time. You just never know what it’s going to be. He felt great, and I guess it must have been.
“In the warm-up pen, he was really nervous, and he was scared to death of the stagecoach. My husband was going to go up and watch the calf roping, and I said, ‘You are staying here. I need help.’ He was pretty wired.”
Lockhart said the go-round buckle for the win would go to Louie’s owners, Tim and Kelly Bagnell of B Bar Heart Performance Horses in Polson, Mont.
“Their family is here tonight,” Lockhart said after the round. “They’re only here for a couple of days, so it can’t get any better.
“Just even getting a piece of the pie is great, but winning a round at the NFR, I don’t hink a person could ever get used to that. It’s just such a life changing event to win a round and to be able to win that kind of money.”
NFR rookie Sydni Blanchard placed third in the round, followed by Jill Moody, Tana Poppino and Brenda Mays.
Kelli Tolbert, of Hooper, Utah, the 2009 WPRA Rookie of the Year, took control of the ground at the Thomas & Mack in the second round, posting a time of 13.68 to outrun Moody and Dolly by three hundredths of a second and claim their first ever gold buckle.
It was a welcome return to form after she and RF Firefly (“Cleo”) hit two barrels in the first round.
“It felt great,” Tolbert said of the run. “I had to really pick her up on the back side of the first barrel and do a little bit of a gymnastic maneuver to get around it, but it obviously wasn’t too costly. She had a great run. She was really aggressive, and she felt like a million bucks.
“I think it was more of a pilot error [in the first go]. I haven’t run her a lot, and sometimes it takes me a little bit to remember how aggressive I need to be and things I need to do to ride her—especially in a little building like this.”
Tolbert has owned Cleo since she was a yearling, and believes it’s the mare’s grit that makes her special.
“The thing I love about her most is that every time she goes across the line, she tries to win,” Tolbert said, “and I think that’s a really rare quality in a horse. She doesn’t always win, obviously, but she always tries her little heart out for me.”
Lockhart and Louie finished third in the round, with Poppino in fourth, Lindsay sears earning her first check of the NFR in fifth and Cervi in sixth.
Cervi and Stingray took control of the third round with a run of 13.65 to top reserve winners Sears and Sugar Moon Express (“Martha”) by a tenth of a second. Moody and Dolly placed third, while Tolbert and Cleo came home fourth, Blanchard placed fifth and Mays and Christina Richman split sixth.
In her first appearance at the National Finals rodeo in 14 years, Angie Meadors of Blanchard, Okla., topped NFR rookies Tolbert and Blanchard by just one hundredth of a second to secure the fourth go-round championship with a time of 13.68 seconds aboard Mulberry Canyon Moon (“Mulberry”).
She’s a very fast mare,” Meadors said of the 7-year-old dapple gray. “She’s really quick I’ve been on a lot of great horses, but this horse is one of the most incredible athletes I’ve ever thrown a leg over. She’s phenomenal.”
Because Mulberry had a reputation for hitting barrels at times rather than running around them, Meadors switched the mare, who is by Marthas Six Moons—the sire of Lindsay Sears’ Martha—and out of an Osage Streaker mare, to the left in February 2010.
“She’s just been incredible to the left,” Meadors said. “Last night, I just don’t think we really got our angle right, and tonight, we still didn’t get it just perfectly, but it was better than last night.”
Lockhart and Louie returned to the top of the standings in the fifth go round, after scoring a time of 13.62 seconds to beat Moody and Dolly by one hundredth of a second.
“He’s feeling good,” Lockhart said of her partner after their second go-round win. “He’s handling the pressure. I really worried about it, but I really feel confident that he’s handling it, so I’m thrilled.
He felt really focused tonight, just like he did the first night.
“Every horse handles it differently, and he’s just one that does not mind any kind of situation, so I’m very fortunate.”
Cervi and Stingray rounded three barrels to take third place in 13.70 seconds. Benette Barrington and Smooth My Credit picked up the check for fourth place, while Mays and Blanchard claimed fifth and sixth respectively.
Mays and her WPRA/AQHA Horse of the Year, Judge Buy Cash (“Jethro”), proved to be the class of the field in the sixth go, earning the first gold buckle of their career with a run of 13.80 seconds.
Mays admitted to riding tentatively in the first few rounds for fear of making a mistake. It wasn’t until her husband and mom both asked her why she didn’t run Jethro as freely during a run as she was during each day’s practice session that she loosened up.
“I think it was just trying not to make mistakes instead of just going and getting it done,” she said. “The last two runs I’ve just kind of done the game plan that got me here, and I’m going to stay with it, and just keep riding like I have all year.
“He’s been feeling great. I’m the one that’s not been riding so good. I’ve just got to stay out of his way and let him do his job. I’ve just kind of relaxed the last two nights and went and did what I’m supposed to do, and it’s paid off.”
Third place in the round went to Cervi and Stingray, with Lockhart and Tolbert earning the next two spots and defending world champion Brittany Pozzi earning her first paycheck of the NFR with a sixth-place finish aboard French Covergirl.
Cervi and Stingray won their second go-round buckle of the 2010 NFR in round seven with a run of 13.70, three hundredths of a second ahead of Sears and Martha. Lockhart, Richman, Pozzi and Blanchard rounded out the top six.
Cervi and Stingray blew away the field in Round 8 with their record-setting time of 13.49 seconds, finishing 17 hundredths of a second ahead of reserve winners Tolbert and Cleo. Moody, Sears, Pozzi (who rode Yeah Hes Firen to his first check of the 2010 NFR) and Mays all finished in the top six.
Angie Meadors and Mulberry earned their second go-round win of the event in the ninth round with a run of 13.59 seconds, the second fastest time of the show.
“I’ve had trouble with the first barrel on her,” Meadors said. “I’ve been getting by it or getting in too tight, so tonight I was trying to work on my angle and going to it. You can’t see that first barrel [from the alley], so I let her go down in the alley a little bit farther before I let her go. I tried to pick a spot on the ground to run her to instead of trying to guess where the first barrel was, and that seemed to help.”
“Once she turned the first barrel, I was like, ‘Let’s go! Come on! We can do this now,”
It was that competitive spirit that kept Meadors going during the rounds after her first win, during which she had hit barrels with both Mulberry and Fantasia Fame (“Fanny”).
“I think when you get to the National Finals, you want to win no matter how much money’s here,” she said. “I don’t care if there’s $1,000 here. You want to win just because the best of the best are here. It doesn’t really change the pressure any. I think it’s still going to be there.”
Moody and Dolly earned their fourth reserve win, while Jeanne Anderson and Flaming Firebug claimed their first check with a third place run. Cervi, Tolbert and Pozzi took the final three paying spots in the round.
Meadors and Mulberry continued their hot streak by claiming a share of the 10th go-round championship with Brittany Pozzi and Yeah Hes Firen (“Duke”) after both teams posted times of 13.67 seconds. Lockhart, Blanchard and Moody came home third, fourth and fifth, and SherryLynn Johnson and Jeanne Anderson split sixth place.
This article was originally published in the January 2011 issue of Barrel Horse News.
