By Rich Winter

605 Sports

Imagine using one horse for four rodeo events and having that horse get sick right before the South Dakota High School Finals Rodeo. Your fortunes in breakaway roping, goat tying, pole bending and reined cow horse depends on your practice partner, your best friend, your rock and the teammate you’ve spent thousands of hours working with. 

That’s exactly what happened to Pierre graduate Layni Stevens. 

“Sis is 14 years old and her gut got twisted up,” Stevens said. “We had to take her to the vet and they ran fluids for a few days.” 

“Sis” was ruled out of competing in the South Dakota High School Rodeo Finals on June 14-18 in Fort Pierre.  

Stevens had qualified for the National High School Rodeo Finals in each of the last three years competing in goat tying, barrel racing and pole bending. While Stevens was hastily trying to figure out what she was going to do, her phone started blowing up with friends and athletes from across the South Dakota rodeo world offering her a horse, a hand, whatever she needed. 

“I had a lot of girls that reached out to offer me their horse,” she said. “It was nuts how many people that offered to help.” 

Stevens didn’t have to wait long for her breakaway roping option to be resolved. 

“My best friend Jenna Holton offered me the horse she used in college (Kodiac),” Stevens said. 

Stevens ultimately decided to use some of her family’s younger horses. She used her own horse “Jet” for goat tying and pole bending. For the team roping competition she borrowed a horse from her roping partner, Tate Hoffman. For the reined cow horse competition she borrowed a horse from Levi Grimes. 

By the time the state finals started Stevens had options, but very little practice on the unfamiliar rides. 

“It didn’t go exactly as planned,” Stevens said. 

One thing that did go according to plan was in the girls cutting competition where Stevens and her horse “Stella” finished first with 76 points. The tandem clinched that national berth early in the week and Stevens reflected on making it to nationals for a fourth consecutive year. 

“Every year coming into the state finals is filled with high pressure and a lot of stress,” she said. “I set the goal to go reach the national finals and with this being my senior year that is pretty special to me.” 

In the breakaway roping competition, on the borrowed horse “Kodiac,” Stevens finished fifth, one spot short of making the national competition. On her younger horse “Jet,” Stevens was seventh in goat tying and grabbed another seventh-place finish in the reined cow horse competition. 

In team roping, Stevens and Hoffman finished in sixth place. 

“It could have been worse,” Stevens said. 

While the state finals results weren’t exactly what Stevens had worked and dreamed for she said the experience, and the input from rodeo fans buoyed her during and after the state finals. 

“I didn’t reach all the goals I had set but that’s just part of rodeo,” she said. “Horses go down and people step up and that’s one of the reasons I’m so glad that I get to live and rodeo in South Dakota.” 

In the spring, Stevens announced that she would be attending a two-year college, Gillette College in Wyoming. 

“I was set on going to a four-year college but after seeing who else is going to be on the rodeo team it was an easy decision,” she said. 

With this year's High School National Finals Rodeo being held in Gillette on July 17-23, Stevens will compete for team South Dakota and spend a moment with her future college teammates getting registered for fall classes.