Skylar Eisinger and Utah Vardell overcame multiple challenges to find their way back to the arena, where they won both open races, the derby and the high stakes race, with only one run.
A two-day event with 90% payback, the Texarkana Showdown has been hosted by Justin Horton and Showdown Productions for two years. Held at the Four States Fairgrounds, the event also featured incentives like The Diamond Classic, Triple Crown, a $1,000-added Non-Incentive Horse and $1,000-added Open Horse.
Open, Derby and High Stakes Champion Skylar Eisinger and Utah Vardell
A junior at Oklahoma State University, Skylar Eisinger almost turned out of the Texarkana Showdown right before her run because she was so sick with the flu. Her mom, Tanja Eisinger encouraged her to hang on for one run and she’s sure glad she did. Skylar and her 2019 gelding Utah Vardell turned in the fastest time of the event, a 14.099 to win the open race on Friday and Saturday, the derby and the high stakes, collecting just under $21,000.
“I had no clue that I even did good until I came out and someone told me, but I was just going in to be smooth and just make my run,” Skylar said. “And honestly, my only expectation was just don’t fall off because I was so sick.”
While this was Skylar’s first time at the Texarkana Showdown, she’s been riding futurity horses with her mom since she was 14. Originally from Wisconsin, Skylar and her mom had made trips south every year to hit larger races and when Skylar wanted to attend Oklahoma State, they decided to move to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.
Though the path to find what worked for “Utah” was long, he is special to the Eisinger’s. They originally bought him sight unseen as a 3-year-old from a Facebook post. Utah’s breeder, Summer Gay was selling him because he bucked. The Eisinger’s had him checked for kissing spine and when he got the all clear, they put him to work.
The first futurity Skylar and Utah entered together, they won. But soon after they started having issues.
“He just had problems in his neck that was affecting his back end and his movement,” Tonja explained. “He wasn’t lame or anything, he was just off and not stepping right. It took me and kind of a team of vets to figure it out and it wasn’t until this last September, so we really didn’t run him because he just wasn’t right.”
Tanja said their solution was to inject Utah’s neck, and around the same time Utah was doing better, Skylar got bucked off a different horse and sustained a knee injury.
“She tore her meniscus, posterior cruciate ligament and fractured her tibia, and then she had surgery to repair that in October,” Tonja said. “We told the doctor she had to ride in December because I needed someone to ride Utah at the OKC Futurity.”
Now that both jockey and horse are healed, they started winning, first with the Lone Star Shootout warm up race in Hamilton, Texas at the beginning of January.
“I knew he had it in him, I just didn’t think it would happen this soon,” Tonja said. “At Hamilton, when she won the warm up race, it was just trying to let him do his job and see what happens. And she won the warm up race. So it’s like the more she tried, the less smooth and he was slower, and so now it’s just let him work and just lightly guide him.”
Now, Skylar plans to attend more derbies this year while saving her rookie year in the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association for when she has a few seasoned horses.
“She loves to futurity and running her babies,” Tanja said of Skylar. “We normally raise and train to sell, like last year she sold three of them when they were done with their futurity year. But with Utah, I want to keep him. He’s just one that I don’t know why but I just think he needs to stay in the family for a while at least.”
Skylar said Utah is sweet but still very childish and playful.
“We have a yearling that he constantly plays with, and he’s scared of everything outside of the arena,” Skylar said. “And if I trot him through the pattern, I’ll trot him through the pattern five times, and he’ll still look at the barrel every time I go up to it like he’s never seen a barrel in his life before.”
Though still unsure at races, Tonja said at home Utah is very personable, and he loves people.
“He’s the horse that could be in the back 40 (of his pasture) and you go out and you call ‘Utah,’ and he perks up his ears and just comes running, which we’ve had some horses that just, you know they don’t care. He was probably a dog in a past Life,” Tanja said with a laugh.
Unknown to the Eisinger’s before they entered the Texarkana Showdown, this win seems like it was meant to be. Utah’s breeder, Summer Gay named the gelding after a longtime family friend who raised cutting horses in Texarkana. The friend, Utah Vardell named a horse after Gay’s father and when Vardell passed away, Gay wanted to name a horse in memory of him. Vardell served on the Board of Directors and Rodeo Committee for the Four States Fair Association for 35 years, the board that oversees the facility where the Texarkana Showdown is held.
This article was originally published in the April 2025 issue of Barrel Horse News.
