By: Tanya Randall
In today’s highly competitive and specialized rodeo world, it’s rare to have a horse excel at the highest level in two events.
For Hermiston, Oregon’s Britni Carlson, Winston Crime is a ProRodeo money earner in both the barrel racing and breakaway. The now 17-year-old Crimewave gelding has the rare distinction of having qualified for the Columbia River Circuit Finals Rodeo in both events in the same season.
“I just love this horse to death,” said Carlson, who will compete at the 2026 Columbia River Circuit Finals in the breakaway thanks in part to Winston’s efforts. “He’s never made the NFR or anything like that, but we’ve never tried. My husband and I work, and we just stay close to the circuit, but I feel like he’s earned me a lot my whole career. Every important win, minus a couple, has been on him.”
Winston, who is out of the Ninety Nine Goldmine mare Gamblers Goldmine, joined the Carlson household when he was 6 or 7 years old. He was originally a heeling prospect for her husband, Andy.
“Some friends of ours were helping another friend sell him,” Britni explained. “They were actually going to consign him to the Hermiston horse sale. They called us and we bought him sight unseen. They said he could really run and stop hard, and my husband should buy him as a heel horse prospect.”
They hadn’t had Winston long before a freak accident claimed the life of the horse Britni was riding.
“I think my husband got to heel the drag on him twice before I took over,” she recalled.
Winston had a brief barrel racing futurity career and wasn’t a fit with his next rider. He had a tendency to run off or hit barrels, so the Carlsons didn’t have to pay a lot for him.
“When I got him, he bucked me off several times,” chuckled Britni. “I told my husband I wanted to sell him, but we didn’t have any other horses for me to ride, so I kept riding him. I knew he could run really fast, so I knew if I could get him to turn the barrels, he could win.”
It was a little easier said than done. Britni spent several years trying to click with Winston on the barrels.
“We hit a lot of barrels,” she said. “Nothing went right. But, like I said, he always clocked. I just had to figure out how to get him around the barrels. He was kind of hot, so I thought roping on him would help him.
“For his breeding, he’s actually really cowy. He loves roping. I’ve actually done everything off of him. I’ve done the Triathlon, Iron Horses, where you do breakaway, barrel racing, heading and heeling and the goat tying. He’s done really good at those.”
Thankfully, Winston earned his keep out of the box while Britni continued to tweak things in the barrel racing. In 2018, they spent the winter in Arizona and things started to come together for them across the board. Unfortunately, Winston was severely injured when they returned home to Oregon.
“I put him in his pasture and a couple of days later, he could hardly walk on his left hind leg,” Britni explained. “He had torn all the ligaments in his hock. The vet said that he’d only seen two horses with this injury, and he didn’t have a great chance of coming back.”
Stem cell therapy and extra time off thanks to the COVID shutdown returned Winston to health.
“He came back in 2021 and made the Columbia River Circuit Finals in the barrel racing and the breakaway,” Britni said. “He won horse of the year too. It was really, really cool. I had spent all this time with him and he was finally winning.”
They had another setback in 2022. Britni was ponying a mare off of Winston, when a horsefly landed on her back. She kicked Winston and reinjured his hock.
“I took him to the same vet, who was retiring, but he agreed to do the same treatment,” she said. “It took another year to heal, but he’s been amazing ever since.”
Winston has competed in both events on some of the biggest stages in rodeo, like the Cheyenne Frontier Days and Pendleton Round-Up. He made the short round in the barrels at Pendleton last year.
He could also still be a stinker from time to time.
“One year at Cheney, I roped my calf—and placed—but for whatever reason he started bucking when my rope broke off,” Britni recalled. “It was so bad that the pickup man came out to help me! Then his horse started bucking and he got bucked off, while my horse stopped! My husband asked, ‘Are you still going to run him in the barrels?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He turned around and won the barrel race at the rodeo.”
Britni said that winning the barrel racing and breakaway at the same rodeo was one of her bucket list goals for her and Winston. As the gelding’s aged, she knows the time for accomplishing that is small.
“He’s placed at a lot of rodeos in both events,” she said. “I’ve won first and second I don’t know how many times, but my goal has always been to win both at the same rodeo. But I don’t know how much I want to run barrels on him anymore due to his age and previous injury.
“I just love roping off of him. He scores like a rock. He doesn’t move and he hardly ever gets outrun. He’s not the fanciest breakaway horse. He doesn’t just drag his hind end and all that, but he gives me so much confidence.”
This past year, Winston placed in both events at every rodeo she asked him to. He also added another event to his resume at Newport, Washington, where a judge used him to flag the breakaway roping.
“It was only breakaway and barrel racing in slack,” Britni recalled. “I had run him and he’d only been tied to the fence for five more girls when they started the breakaway. So he literally got ran, tied up and then the judge mistakenly grabbed the wrong horse.
“I roped and when I came out, his halter was tied back up to the fence, so I knew he hadn’t run off. It was obvious someone had bridled him. We spent 10-15 minutes looking for him, and then I honestly thought someone had stolen him!
“I was freaking out! I started to cry, and then one of the pickup men said, ‘Gosh, the flag horse is still tied to the fence. I wonder what the flagman is riding?’ Sure enough, he was out there. The judge felt so bad. They had already put the flag horse away, so he asked if he could keep using him. I said, ‘Yes, it’s not a problem!’”
Along with his dual qualification to the Columbia River Circuit Finals in 2021, Winston has helped Britni qualify in the breakaway twice more. They’ve also qualified for the Northern Pro Rodeo Association Finals in both events six times.
“I really think he could have made it several more times (to the Circuit Finals) in both,” she said. “After he hurt his hock again, I never ran him hard enough to try to do it again. I wanted it badly, not for me, for him. I wanted it really badly for my horse.”
For all the struggles in the beginning, Winston is firmly a part of the Carlson family now and hopefully will make the transition to kids’ horse in his dotage.
“I’ll never have another horse like him,” said Britni, the mother of one with another on the way. “He wasn’t easy for a long time but there’s not a horse that I love more.”
Read more: 2026 Columbia River Circuit Finals Breakaway Roping Tracker: Draw, Times and Results
