Laura Bartels has been competing in rodeo for 10 years. She has participated in numerous events like barrel racing, goat tying, pole bending, breakaway roping, and light rifle shooting, and will soon be starting team roping. She has received many awards and has participated in many big rodeos over the past 10 years. Her most notable rodeo, which was seen across the US, was the Junior Patriot Rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas. As she continues her rodeo career, she hopes to climb even bigger mountains and achieve even higher accomplishments.
Bartels’ goals for this year, mentally, are “to maintain happy and healthy lifestyles through the rodeo path, because sometimes it can be very mentally damaging.” Physically, she would like to maintain a top-four position in Wisconsin for any one of her events. If she is able to do that, she will make her way to the High School National Finals Rodeo in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where she would be able to compete against other top-four competitors from the rest of the 50 states, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand.
This year’s season officially starts on Mother’s Day weekend when she will be competing in Gays Mills, Wisconsin for the Little Britches of Wisconsin Rodeo Association. The next weekend, she will be competing in Tomah, Wisconsin to kick off her season with the Wisconsin High School Rodeo Association. Both of those seasons end, at the latest, in the last week of September. Because of the dates of the rodeo season, there are some things that Bartels has to miss in order to reach her goals. She has to miss most Fridays in the fall first quarter of school, and she might have to miss softball practices or games on Fridays and weekends after the rodeo season officially starts.
Now that the season is approaching, Bartels has started preparing her horses. During October and November, Bartels goes on trail rides with her horses to give them physical activity but to also give them a mental break from rodeo. From December to early February, she stops her horses from doing any athletic riding. About halfway through February, Bartels starts spring preparation for her horses. “It’s like preseason conditioning, but it starts slower for horses in order to rebuild their lung capacity,” Bartels said. She practices during this time for 4-5 days a week for 4-5 hours a day. Once all of the preparation is done, she and the horses are ready for the season.