Calli VanTassell and CVT Rockyroad claimed their first futurity championship with a win at the Dixie Classic-Konra Minniear Memorial.
At-A-Glance:
When: March 7-10, 2024
Where: Washington County Legacy Park — Hurricane, Utah
Total Entries: 1,234 runs
Total Payout: $141,014
Hooper, Utah native Calli VanTassell’s life revolves around fast horses. In addition to training winning barrel horses, she is a multiple stakes-winning racehorse trainer. It’s a family affair — her father is a trainer and her husband is a jockey. The Dixie Classic Futurity Average win came in just her second year of futurity competition and was on the back of a special horse. CVT Rockyroad, or “Rocky” as he’s affectionately known, was orphaned when his dam passed at birth.
“I raised him, and his mama (BH Wyoming Star) is really special to me,” VanTassell shared. “My dad trained her, and I was able to run a brother of his. We actually named him ‘Rockyroad’ before his mom passed, but then it was fitting. We tried to get so many surrogate mares to take him, but none would. We ended up keeping a few for him to nurse off of while we held them.”
The road remained rocky as VanTassell started to break and train the high-spirited gelding.
“He’s so full of personality and was a tougher horse to get broke because his attention span was 15 seconds long. To be honest you wouldn’t have thought he was going to be a great barrel horse because he was so animated and out there not paying attention,” she said. “It would be easy to get frustrated, but I deal with race horses every day so I just put up with it. When I asked him to do it correct with speed, he always would. He just locks in once you put speed to him. He’s super athletic, super quick footed and talented; I knew I just had to take it slow and not get frustrated with him.”
VanTassell and Rocky notched their first round win in January at the Greg Olson Memorial Futurity in Buckeye, Arizona. When they returned in February for the Royal Crown, the hard-running gelding had a hard time catching his breath after their second run. The savvy trainer had him examined by her vet, who discovered an upper airway infection. Treatment and time off helped to clear the infection, but resulted in only a handful of days that VanTassell could ride before the Dixie Classic.
“Honestly I didn’t decide to go until the day before,” she said. “I just didn’t feel super confident in the whole thing, and I wanted him to be OK more than anything. But I had two clean scopes on him and my vet told me to quit being a pansy!”
You wouldn’t have known they missed a beat as the pair started strong, winning Round One of the futurity with a 15.139 and pocketing $1,663. A 15.328 in Round Two for eighth place was out of the money, but solid enough for their total of 30.467 to be on top of the average, worth $2,217.
“Friday’s run was really, smooth and collected; really a pretty run. It felt good. Saturday’s run was really wild, I won’t lie,” VanTassell said. “He turned the first and didn’t quite move over far enough; I thought we were going to get a no time. But he got around it and then at the third dropped his shoulder and I had to really pull on him to keep him off of it. He’s still figuring himself out, but he’s so fast that he can make those mistakes and still clock.”
VanTassell thanks her family and team at home for their support and keeping things running smoothly to allow her to go compete.
