HEBER Carlee Dick knows everything happens for a reason, but sometimes it’s hard to accept the hand you’re dealt.
When the star cowgirl from Oakley was told her horse of five years the horse that took her to the National High School Rodeo Association Finals as a freshman developed colic, typically a blockage in the intestines and often life-threatening, three weeks before the Utah High School Rodeo Association State Finals in Heber, the junior at South Summit High School saw the all-around state title slipping from her grasp.
Suddenly, gone was another opportunity to compete against the nation’s best.
“I was just thinking that all this hard work was kind of coming to an end,” she said.
Carlee, the only girl in the state this year to advance to the finals Saturday evening in three events (girls’ cutting, breakaway and barrels), and her father, Ladd, had to scramble in search of a new gelding, in search of a horse that could give her at least a chance at winning the all-around and possibly a few individual titles.
“I didn’t even know how hard it was to replace a horse within three weeks,” said Ladd Dick. “I spent two weeks trying to find the horse that was going to work for her. We’re talking thousands of dollars to try and find a horse last minute. I will say this rodeo community was so gracious; we had probably 30 phone calls from people wanting us to borrow their horses.”
But Ladd and Carlee decided she needed to find her own horse. Carlee even turned down an offer from younger sister Rylee, an up-and-coming rodeo star freshman at South Summit, who qualified for the final event in goat tying Saturday night. Rylee wanted to help her older sister and role model.
“I didn’t want to take Rylee’s opportunity away,” Carlee said. “She earned it.”
In a frantic search for the right horse, Carlee and Ladd looked all over the Western United States. They found a replacement horse in Idaho and on May 31, eight days prior to the start of the state finals, Carlee was stuck in the position of preparing to go against the best cowgirls in the state on an unfamiliar mount.
“It takes a while to bond with a horse,” Ladd Dick said.
As Carlee entered finals week, things just weren’t the same, she said. She competed and qualified for three events on Saturday night, but the connection between an experienced cowgirl and her horse is not found very often, let alone easily replaced.
In the end, she finished seventh in both girls’ cutting and barrels and 10th in breakaway, according to final standings on www.uhsra.org.
After she missed the calf in the breakaway finals Saturday evening, her emotions bubbled to the surface.
And after her 16.798 finals time in the barrels, her tumultuous last month was complete. Carlee took a few laps in the horse pit on the east side of the stadium Saturday night, thinking about the promising season that was snatched from the palm of her hand.
“When you start winning, you’ve got such a high to keep going,” she said. “When you’re losing, you kind of get in that same streak, just the opposite.”
Added Ladd: “She’s had a hard week, just because we came into this in the top and thought we had a really good shot to win the all-around. The all-around is the pinnacle.”
Carlee finished the season third in the girls’ all-around according to the online standings, 18 points behind the winner.
Ladd jumped on his horse and the two took a few silent laps together before Carlee took her new gelding to the Dick family trailer and prepared to watch Rylee in the goat-tying finals.
“I was as emotional as can be,” Ladd said. “As rough a week as we had, I said, ‘Way to pull it out. Way to go.’ It’s a funny deal, here we are being so successful, we’re in the top 10 in the state of Utah in three events, and we feel cheated because we want to be No. 1.”
“I just have to learn that I had a great opportunity to do well all year,” Carlee said. “Everything happens for a reason and I just have to keep going with it and have to think that I’m only a junior and still have one more year.”
Ladd says his younger daughter Rylee is “all speed and no grease,” a polar opposite style to that of Carlee’s all-around savvy.
“I like my own style, but (Carlee’s) gone on to nationals before, and I want to get there,” Rylee said.
Rylee finished 19th in goat tying Saturday night, unable to land the lasso, but finished 10th overall in pole bending.
She said no matter the arena, she has the drive to beat her older sister, and that is the only way she will get to where Carlee has already been.
“That’s like the biggest thing,” Rylee said. “We like to compete against each other.”
Both girls qualified for the Silver State International Rodeo in early July in Winnemucca, Nev.
Carlee’s horse will make it. Ladd said the gelding will be out of action at least six months. The target date to get Carlee back on is January 2012.
“When I saw that he was going to make it, it kind of made it all better,” she said. “Just knowing I still have more years with him.”
To continue the family tradition, Carlee and Rylee have twin 6th-grade brothers who are heading to Gallup, N.M., to compete in the Junior High School National Rodeo Association Finals.
“It’s our life,” Ladd Dick said of the rodeo. “We live it, dream it. You know, I wouldn’t change it. It has its trying times, but it’s been great.”