Dreaming big and following my passion!

Dear Possible Sponsor’s,

My name is Chloe Watts, I am 12 years old, and my sport is rodeo! I’m the only girl and I have 4 annoying brothers! I have been doing rodeo for about 5 years now, and I love it. I have been working so hard to try and reach my dream of one day being a contestant in the NFR, but one step at a time. This year for the first time I entered in District 9, my local Jr. High and Highschool traveling rodeo. In order to qualify for state, I need to be in the top 3. Then if I got this far I would go to nationals and after that I might possibly be able to go to the Jr. NFR. The events I have been doing are Barrel racing, Pole bending, Goat tying, and Breakaway roping. I have only been doing Breakaway roping for 2 years and before that I did dummy roping. Since I am going into district 9, I wanted to try out ribbon roping. Thats where a rider ropes the calf, I run after it, grab a ribbon off its tail and run back as fast as I can to get a time. Even though I have only been doing rodeo for about 5 years I have been riding for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was little I had a dream that I would become the best barrel racer ever, but now I want to become the best at all the events I do.

We have a lot of animals such as horses, a donkey, goats, dogs, cats, a tortoise, chickens, and guinea hens. I did 4H for one year then my goat passed away, after that I got a new one but before 4H came around he passed away too, so we just stopped trying to find a goat for me to do 4H again. Then I started getting into rodeo and I’m very happy I did because I love it! Some people say horse riding looks so easy. Most of the time it’s not! You have to be willing to put in the hard work for your passion. Since I don’t have an arena at my house, we practice 4 days a week at our local rodeo arena in Kernville so that I can get anywhere near reaching my dreams.

I just got a new horse, her name is Lainey, she is 7 years old, and she is really fast. I am only going to use her for barrel racing and pole bending for now. My other horses name is Rink and he’s getting old. He is about 23 and it’s getting quite hard for him to turn sharp, which is what I have to do for barrels and poles. I am still going to ride him in goat tying and breakaway because we’re just going in a straight line. My new horse and I go to practice 4 days a week. We are starting to get used to each other a lot more and we are going so fast. On the days that I am not practicing at the arena, I practice roping and goat tying at my house. I also go on trail rides often so that my horses aren’t sitting and are getting more exercise to keep them fit. She also turns so nicely; our turns are so tight. I can’t wait to see what our time is going to be on barrels and poles! I also just got a new bit and I have so much more control over her than I did with my old bit. Before my new bit our poles were a little wide and I struggled to turn her. Since she is so young, I have to stay consistent on practicing so that she is not too fresh. Also, so that her and I can stay right on track where we left off on our last practice, and so that we still have our head in the game, to do a good pattern.

Now that I have talked a lot about me, maybe even too much, let’s start talking about the expenses. For one rodeo weekend, my entry fee for my events is about $300. Also, paying for stalls, food, travel and feed for my horses, is about another $400. That all adds up to a lot of money just for one weekend and there are seven rodeo weekends this season. The furthest we would have to travel is 6 hours away from my house. Then the others are 4 hours away, 2 hours away, and then one of them is at our local arena in Kernville, which is like 15 minutes from my house. Diesel is still quite expensive and with all 4 of my brothers in sports too it can be kind of hard. If you would be interested in helping me on this journey, I would greatly appreciate it!

Chloe Watts