Tuesday was a long, busy day for Britta Strain.
The Floridian turned Texan competed in both the barrel racing and breakaway roping during the Qualifying Rounds of Rodeo Corpus Christi (RCC), a stop on the World Champions Rodeo Alliance’s (WCRA) Triple Crown of Rodeo tour. The $500,000 rodeo began on Sunday, May 8 with the first of three days of preliminary rounds held at the Richard M. Borchard Regional Fairgrounds in Robstown, about a twenty-minute drive from town.
Strain’s day began during the barrel race. Though already seeded into the Progressive Round by virtue of being ranked 4th on the WCRA Leaderboard, Strain took the chance to run at some go-round money and get a seasoning run on her futurity horse, Streakin Boon Stars, aka George.
“He was awesome, we actually would have made it back if we weren’t already seeded,” she laughed.
Only the top 24 from the Qualifying Rounds punch their tickets to the Progressive Round, which is held during the first three performances in the American Bank Center on May 11-13, 2022.
Strain did not have the luxury of a guaranteed position in her second event of the day, the breakaway roping, and had to deliver a clutch performance to continue to compete. She easily moved forward with a win in the two-head average. Her time of 5.45 seconds was two tenths ahead of two-time Wrangler National Finals Breakaway Roping (NFBR) qualifier Martha Angelone.
“I love doing both events,” Strain said.
She noted she didn’t have a game plan going into the competition.
“I was just aiming to make it through to the next round,” she laughed. “I try not to have too much on my mind. It’s harder for me, for example, to know too much about my calf . . . I do better just reading the play as I go then I’m not thinking about what I think the calf is going to do.”
Thanks to that mindset, Strain didn’t even know what horse she was going to ride. She has two tough mares, Peppa and Eleanor, and one is better on shorter scores.
“I wasn’t even saddled until after about five of them had run,” she admitted. She elected to go with Eleanor, a 12-year-old bay mare who actually survived a terrible trailer wreck that left Strain in the hospital with a lacerated liver, broken spine, and fractured right elbow and thumb back in 2020.
“I think she got even better after the wreck,” Strain admitted. “Or maybe I got better. But she’s amazing.”
Strain was smooth at 3.20 seconds in round one, not quite fast enough for a check.
“I was really happy with my first run, it was just solid for the average and I knew not everyone would catch the second one,” Strain said. “The second one was just right there and it happened quickly. I didn’t really plan on being that fast.”
Her 2.25 was good enough for third in the round to clinch the average win. She earned $2,830 for the day.
“They’re so fun,” Strain said of the WCRA events. “I love the setup.”
The WCRA’s format fits perfectly into Strain’s hectic lifestyle. She’ll be a senior at Texas A&M in the fall, majoring in animal science with a minor in biomedical science. Plans to maybe head to vet school are on hold for a bit while she chases her rodeo dreams.
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“I want to hit the road, make the NFR in both events, hopefully in the same year,” she said.
First things first though, and the cowgirl who loves to surf is hoping to secure a title in Corpus Christi where they give a surfboard as the major award to go along with a $15,000 paycheck.
“That would be super,” she said. “I don’t even want to think about it yet but it would be so cool.”
To do that, she’ll have to advance out of the Progressive Round—they take the top two from each perf—and then rope quick enough to move from the Showdown Round to the Triple Crown Round, both held during the Saturday, May 14 performance, and win the final round.
“Same thing as today,” Strain strategized. “Read the start, get aggressive. They only take two to the next round so there’s no sense in tracking one down the arena.”
Qualifying Results
Division Youth (DY) Inventive
- Kerstin Freeman, 6.49, $2,500
- Rylie Edens, 12.35, $1,000
1st Go
- Laramie Johnson, 2.53, $1,600 each
- Josey Murphy, 2.61, $1,200
- Bailey Jay, 2.71, $800
- Jade Kenney & Ari-Anna Flynn, 2.83, $200 each
2nd Go
- Martha Angleone, 2.14, $1,600
- Cheyanne Guillory, 2.16, $1,200
- Britta Strain, 2.25, $800
- Jessie Calkins Letzelter & Angie Green, 2.94, $200 each
Aggregate/Progressive Round Qualifiers
- Britta Strain, 5.45, $2,030
- Martha Angelone, 5.65, $1,680 — #2 SEED
- Jessie Calkins Letzelter, 5.92, $1,330
- Kerstin Freeman (DY), 6.49, $980
- Laramie Johnson, 6.91, $630
- Bailey Jay, 7.0, $350
- Aspen Miller, 7.24
- Lindsei Harvey, 7.36
- Ari-Anna Flynn, 7.41
- Jackie Crawford, 8.27
- MaryBeth Beam, 8.45
- Jenna Lee Adams, 8.57
- Bailey Gubert, 8.65 — #4 SEED
- Bryana Lehrmann, 8.85
- Josie Conner, 10.74
- Rylie Edens (DY), 12.35
- Cheyanne Guillory, 2.16 on one head
- Josey Murphy, 2.61
- Jade Kenney, 2.83
- Abby Medlin, 2.88
- Angie Green, 2.94
- Karrigan McQuay (DY), 3.06
- Tacy Kay Webb, 3.07 — #3 SEED
- Lari Dee Guy, 3.15
- Halle Tatham, 3.17
- Bradi Good, 3.18
- Hali Williams, 3.35
Showdown Round, top two from each performance, May 11-13, plus #1 Seed
- Josie Conner — #1 SEED
