Barrel racers thriving at Horseshoe Park events

Jul 12, 2023

Felicia Buechle guided Sonitas Last Legacy through the maze last weekend at the Queen Creek Barrel Racing Association 2 Broke 4 Vegas barrel race at Horseshoe Park and Equestrian Centre. (David Minton/Tribune Staff Photographer)

Jill Starkey does not horse around. She started barrel racing horses for the thrill of it at age 6.

"I guess I like adrenaline," said Starkey, now 52, a local resident and co-founder of the Queen Creek Barrel Racing Association, which hosted the Too Broke for Vegas (aka "2 Broke 4 Vegas") Barrel Race at Horseshoe Park and Equestrian Centre last weekend.

"There's an element of danger to it so I guess that makes it exciting and thrilling all at the same time," she added. "And I like going fast, so that makes it a lot of fun."

So fast, in fact, the horses are timed to one one-thousandth of a second because the contests are so close, as opposed to the one one-hundredth of a second typical of timing in most sports.

Barrel racing boils down to mastering accelerating a horse in quick, straight lines, decelerating quickly, and making tight turns around a series of three barrels as fast as possible – all of which is tougher than it looks, Starkey said.

"It's a thrilling sport," she explained. "People look at it and think ‘it looks so easy,’ but until you actually do it, turning a horse at full speed is not as easy as it looks.

"There's a lot of people that fall off at barrels if you’re not centered or hanging on properly."

Success is primarily about the horse's footing in the dirt and Horseshoe Park provides the best there is, Starkey said.

She explained that for the horse and rider to perform at their best and safest, the soil needs to be different for barrel racers than it is for, say, bull riding events.

"We need a little bit deeper and thicker to be safe for a horse to come at full speed, stop on a dime and turn," Starkey explained. "The ground has to hold them up and not let them skid and wipe out."

She said the grounds crew team at Horseshoe Park goes to school to learn how to prepare the soil for all the different riding events. Starkey said riders love coming to Horseshoe Park because of it.

"Riders will travel long distances to be on safe ground," Starkey said. "It's safe, fast dirt. They (the grounds crew) knock it out of the park every time."

The event last weekend at Horseshoe Park drew 400 mostly local riders over two days and was set up much like the National Barrel Horse Association's Professional Choice Super Show June 1-4 in Las Vegas.

Starkey said for people who cannot afford that trip, the Queen Creek event was a welcomed substitute.

Like other specialty sports, barrel racing is now big business and getting into it can require big bucks. The higher up the ranks a rider climbs, the more it costs.

Top-level barrel racing horses carry a price tag of about $100,000 or higher.

And even a horse that has just been "broke" for barrel racing can require months of training that can cost $10,000.

Starkey added that success in barrel racing has a lot to do with the person in the saddle, not just the animal's pedigree.

"The $10,000 horse with the right rider can turn that horse into the $40,000 horse. "So, it's expensive. It's not cheap and horses in general are pretty high right now."

On the other side of the ledger, there is prize money at stake.

At the National Finals Rodeo, which features barrel racing in addition to other traditional riding events, the best riders can win as much as $30,000 per round and there are 10 rounds at that event.

But only the top 15 money earners in the nation can qualify for the NFR, so they have spent money traveling the country and competing at other events to reach that threshold, Starkey explained.

"You can win a lot of money if you’re winning every round," she added. "But it costs a lot, too."

She pointed to Marana resident Sherry Cervi, a four-time world champion who has won over $3 million barrel racing.

Typically, in local events, like the 2 Broke 4 Vegas race at Horseshoe Park, about 70% of what race organizers collect in entry fees is paid out in prize money, so the winners’ purses depend on the number of event entries.

Barrel racing has come a long way since its inception.

When the sport got its start, prize money was not even part of the equation. It comes from humble beginnings and is thought to have sprung up during the early days of rodeo.

One of the first formal rodeos in recorded history happened in Prescott in the late 1800s.

While it is not clear if that is where barrel racing began, Starkey said what is certain is that it was born as a sport when the cowboys’ wives were not satisfied with just watching their husbands compete in the roping and bull riding events.

"The sport of rodeo was always a man's sport, and the women would be sitting around having nothing to do," she said. "So, someone came up with the idea ‘well, how fast can we run around these three barrels in a pattern?’ The men were roping and doing all the men's events and it gave the women something to do."

Much of that equestrian history is still alive and well in Queen Creek and the town has made a strong showing in the barrel racing community in just the last few years.

Until 2014, barrel racers had to travel to the West Valley for local competitions.

That was when Starkey, along with her business partner and fellow Queen Creek resident Stacy Portonova, decided the east side needed barrel racing venues, too.

"It was a jaunt traveling over there with a four-horse trailer in 110 degrees," she said of the West Valley events.

"There were a lot of us that were going over there so its good to establish barrel racing here on the East side. Especially at Horseshoe Park. It is the premier equestrian facility in the Southwest if not in the whole western half of the United States. It's a phenomenal facility."

The Queen Creek Barrel Racing Association was instrumental in getting a second arena covered at Horseshoe Park, which in turn has helped draw more riders to barrel racing events.

Starkey said the association hopes to use that momentum to cover more arenas at the park and "bridge the horse community and the normal, non-horse community."

And she loves Horseshoe Park, calling it "a really cool multi-purpose arena and space."

"I think Queen Creek is really lucky to have it."

She explained that because of Horseshoe Park's location near Riggs and Ellsworth roads, it is accessible to lots of neighboring residential areas which also makes the it easy to reach, and many do so on horseback.

"You can ride the Sonoqui Wash right to Horseshoe Park so you don't even have to trailer over," she said. "People just hop on their horses and they ride over there so they come to our races that way, which is super cool."

Starkey said that accessibility helps bolster Queen Creek's equestrian heritage that has been challenged by the town's rapid growth.

She argues that keeping that heritage alive for the town and surrounding communities is important, especially as people move in from places that do not have this kind of history.

"Not everybody gets to have horses and see horses and this is really a phenomenal thing for non-horse people to be around," Starkey explained. "It's really cool to keep that western heritage alive."

She said Horseshoe Park and the Queen Creek Barrel Racing Association's partnership is also unique in that it caters to barrel racers at all levels.

The sport is accessible to all ages and abilities and offers skills that will

stick with the rider, new and experienced, forever.

"It's a big sport." Starkey said. "It's a lifelong sport. Because it is a lifelong sport, I think we will always have it."

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