by Kelsey Temmen
Sadie Shake, a 15-year-old cowgirl from Buena Vista, Colo., knows what it means to be successful in and out of the arena. She is a sophomore with a 4.0 GPA at Monte Vista Online Academy and has high aspirations of becoming a veterinarian when she grows up. “I want to establish my own clinic and specialize in performance horses and their joints.” She has a lot of support from her family and credits them for her successes. “My family really motivates me and I have a lot of self-dedication to the sport. I spend so much time with my horses and I want to go out there and win.” Her family helped her to get her start in rodeo, but she actually started out riding English. “When I was eight or nine-years-old, I was offered to be a rodeo princess and saw barrel racing and decided that’s what I want to do and then I bought my first rodeo horse when I was eleven. My grandpa, Donald Shake, and my barrel racing trainers, Ivy Conrado and her dad, Kelly, are my role models. Ivy wins a lot and she has the best attitude about it and knows how to take a loss while
being respectful and handling herself well.”
Sadie also gives thanks to her father, Shawn Shake, for being her support and helping her get down the
rodeo road.
Sadie competes in barrel racing, pole bending, and goat tying with her favorite of the three being barrel racing. “Barrel racing is perfect because my horse is the best teammate out there. It took awhile for us to get together, but once we did, he is so cool to ride.” Her bar-rel horse, Gotta Bee Blazin Aka. Driller, is a 10-year-old sorrel appendix gelding that has given her quite a struggle. “It took six months for us to have a clean run, but when we finally got it, we won the whole rodeo and had the fastest time of the weekend. After that we were unstoppable.” The success that she has had with this horse is one of her greatest accomplishments. She won the CPRA Rookie of the Year in 2015 and this was also the year that she was able to make things “click” with her horse Driller. “My favorite quote is ‘Rock bottom is a wonderful foundation for success to be built on.’ I want people to know that Driller and I struggled. It took a long time to get with him, but I never gave up!”
Her goals for her rodeo career include making it to the CPRA finals and placing at Nationals in high school rodeo. To date, her favorite rodeo has been the IFYR in Shawnee, Oklahoma. “It was a really good time and the people were super nice. I love the atmosphere at rodeos where everyone is so nice and supports each other.”
