World barrel racing champion Marlene McRae began riding and showing horses at age 6 and won her first Little Britches Rodeo at age 13. That All Around Cowgirl award became the first of countless prizes, including winning the 1983 world champion barrel racing title and winning the 1988 gold medal in barrel racing at the Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta. Now 50, she lives in Ramah, where she runs World Champion Designs, trains horses and teaches barrel racing.
How do you describe barrel racing to someone who’s never seen it?
It’s a precision event, timed, and consists of running a cloverleaf pattern around three 55-gallon barrels, with one right turn and two lefts, or one left and two right turns. It’s a team effort between a horse and a human to go as fast as they can, and it’s fun and exciting, a wonderful dance between a horse and a rider.
Barrel racing is a very fast event, with time measured in hundredths of a second. Is it scary?
Well, there was a Woman’s Day magazine article about “the perils of Marlene” that compared me to a race car driver and a skydiver. I thought, “My word, you think my event is equivalent to that type of fear factor?” I have no fear of going fast on a horse. When I was 5 or 6, I raced my little Shetland pony at full speed.
Of all the horses you’ve owned, which was your favorite?
Dutch Watch, the horse I won the national finals on and earned over $1 million on. He was special, a tremendous athlete and unique in that he trusted me and no one else. I competed on him from when he was 7 to when he was 19 years old. When we had to put him to sleep, he was 25, with the same disease as Secretariat. It was very, very hard. We had a bond that was special.
What’s the most important focus in barrel racing?
You have to stay very center to your horse so you don’t cause your horse to stumble and fall. Ninety percent of the accidents are rider error, although people don’t like to admit it. Actually you could say 100 percent are rider error, because it’s your fault if you run your horse on bad ground or if his shoes are inadequate. A horse can’t put on his own shoes. If the horse falls down, it’s because the rider messed up somewhere.
Do you still compete?
Right now, it’s fair season, and all the county fairs are on. I have one rodeo a day (until) August 13. I liked them all, but I really like Eagle and Loveland because those two pay the best. I’ll be riding a stallion I call John, and a gelding. I bought the stallion from people who named him Fols Dear John. The gelding’s name is just as bad: The people who raised him named him Lonesome Valentine, and his nickname is Cherry.
