Crawford Jumps to First in World Standings, Leads On 4 After Day 1 of National Finals Breakaway Roping

Six months pregnant with a kicking baby girl. In a saddle with a horn cut off. And Jackie Crawford is still 9.9 seconds on four head to lead the first-ever National Finals of Breakaway Roping in Arlington, Texas’s Globe Life Field in 2020. 

[Listen: Catch Crawford, Boisjoli and Angelone on The Score after Rounds 1-4]

[Related: The Definitive List of the Top 15 National Finals of Breakaway Qualifying Horses and Their Pedigrees]

[Related: Motherhood & The Mental Game with Jackie Crawford]

Crawford, 37, picked up $10,285.57 on her way to the average lead, including a first-round win that netted her the National Cowgirl Museum’s Betty Gayle Cooper Ratliff Award for the fast-time in Round 1 with a 1.9-second run. She now has the lead in the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association World Standings with $31,934.68. 

“I said I could win every single round and the average every year until 2030, that’s how many times I’ve envisioned this day in my mind,” Crawford, of Stephenville, Texas, said. “It’s amazing, so to actually, the first round, here I am just sitting there watching J.J. (Hampton), Hope (Thompson), Lari Dee (Guy), just be 2.0, 2.0, 2.0, thinking that’s going to be so cool all three of them girls getting to take the picture (for the Betty Gayle Cooper Ratliff Award), just in my mind you know. But of course, as a competitor, you don’t back off. So when it all worked out, I was like ‘Holy crap, I just won the first round at the first NFR.'”

[Read More: Crawford’s Critical Horse Care Regimen]

Her first calf wasn’t just an easy shot, either. 

“Oh my gosh,” Crawford said. “I didn’t even mean to throw that fast, honestly. He didn’t leave like I thought, so I kind of throttled and pulled and, when I came down, I just felt the timing right, and it just went. He was low-headed. He was at the end of my rope, and for whatever reason, I let go of it and it worked.”

The 19-time WPRA World Champ never questioned riding 15-year-old sorrel gelding DS Sassy Shiner—known as T-Boy. 

“T-Boy felt amazing today,” Crawford said. “That horse has taken care of me so much. When you ride something for 10 years, he just—he’s not a pretty horse, and he’s sorrel and he’s taken care of me for a long time. Today he just stepped it up. He feels amazing. He scored great. He let me pull on him and throttle him. He backed in the corner easy and really got in his stop and broke the rope off. I can’t fault that horse at all.” 

Canadian cowgirl Shelby Boisjoli sits second in the average with a time of 10.5 seconds on four head with $6,692.31 won. She’s now seventh in the world standings with $18,638.54 on the year.

“The first calf, I just wanted to make sure the calf took a good, honest start,” Boisjoli, 22, said. “Honestly, that was my game plan for all four calves. That’s the first time through for all of them. We ran four separate pens, so I wanted to make sure all the calves got a good start before I left. I wasn’t trying to break a barrier in the first four go-rounds, and if I need to speed it up from here, I can now that we know the calves.”

Martha Angelone, of Stephenville, Texas, is third in the average on four head with a time of 10.6 seconds on four head, winning a go-round and earning $7,827 along the way. She entered the Finals third in the world and remains third, now with $23,392.57.

“I like not having to wait a whole day to run another one,” Angelone said. “I like when you have that momentum going and you’re pumped up, that you got to run a few…I’ve never been smart in my whole life, so I don’t know why I would start now. I’m going to see how fast I can be. If there’s a situation where I’m late, I’m just going to try to catch him.

For full results, visit WPRA.com.