Kynder Florea lives outside the youth rodeo hotbed that is Texas and Oklahoma—but that’s not keeping the Maryville, Missouri, cowgirl from roping her way into every opportunity, including the 2024 Cinch World Championship Junior Rodeo.
At 14-years-old, Florea keeps busy with breakaway, heading, poles and goat tying. Rodeoing alongside her brother and sister Hayzer and Skyler, Florea finds herself gravitating towards the roping events.
“Out of all the events, I am most competitive in the breakaway roping,” Florea said. “I also go to the most breakaway ropings and like the event because it’s your power. In barrels it’s a lot of horsepower, where as in breakaway and team roping you have a lot of control over your runs.”
Based in Northern Missouri, Florea competes in Junior High Rodeo—advancing to the 2024 NJHFR—and The Patriot family of events. She nominated her $4,010 payday in the 2024 Jr. Patriot 15 & Under Breakaway Finals to the WCRA, which allows her to round up leaderboard points to qualify for events like the 2024 Cinch WCJR.
“Any rodeos around home, I can call and nominate to the WCRA,” Florea explained. “I can usually round up some points at those local events.”
Gearing up for WCJR 2024
Her persistence has paid off, too, because she’s currently sitting No. 2 on the WCJR Youth Breakaway leaderboard with 9,112 points. The Top 16 on the DY24 leaderboard are seeded directly into the Semi-Final Round at the Cinch WCJR, meaning Florea is going to get to run at the barrier for go-round money in the Qualifying Rounds.
Fun fact: In 2023, WCJR breakaway paid the most out of all girls events in both Junior (19-13) and Youth (15-10) in 2023. Breakaway’s payout was 34.7% of the combined total of women’s payouts between breakaway, barrel racing, pole bending and goat tying….
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Florea’s been to the Lazy E Arena for the WCJR once before, in 2023. She caught all her calves in the youth division, but wasn’t fast enough to make it past the Qualifying Rounds. She’s keeping a similar ‘catch’ mentality going into the 2024 event—with the added security of her Semi-Finals seed.
“I want to place high, but I am just going to focus on seeing my start and doing my job,” Florea said. “I am better on average setups than I am on one-headers, because on one headers I push the barrier and end up breaking out a lot. But on the average, I can think, ‘I am going to catch this one and place how I place.'”
Her teammate for the WCJR is 13-year-old mare “Shorty,” who was trained in the breakaway by sister Skyler.
“Shorty scores really good, and she gets to the cow quickly because she has a lot of speed,” Florea said. “She’s seasoned enough, too, that I know she’s not going to [be unpredictable]. Shorty makes it fun.”
While Florea’s just 14, she says she’s looking forward to attending college, college rodeoing, and plans to ProRodeoing beyond that.
