story by Lindsay Whelchel
When Caitlin Depue began her rodeo career, she didn’t have her own horse, her own tack or a trailer. She didn’t come from a rodeo family. But where she started hasn’t slowed down the Kansas cowgirl from where she’s headed.
“It just doesn’t matter where you start. Everyone had to start somewhere I just keep telling myself,” Caitlin says.
She began riding horses by taking lessons from a woman named Lisa Loyd, who runs a horse rescue.
“I took to it really fast, and I spent a lot of my time out here riding horses and then eventually started breaking horses for her for the horse rescue,” Caitlin describes and says of Lisa, “Lisa definitely taught me how to work with horses very well, because she’s been doing it for years. We ended up being able to put rescue horses into really great homes because we break them first, so I have a lot of experience breaking horses just because of how many rescue horses we’ve had come in and out of here.”
In fact, it was Lisa’s barrel mare that Caitlin started out practicing and learning barrels on and then used in the Kansas High School Rodeo Association last season.
Her mother Heidi has also jumped on board by moving them out to Pretty Prairie, Kansas, to be closer to the barn. Caitlin used to drive an hour to practice.
Despite the closer location, it’s still a lot of work and dedication that Caitlin has.
“It’s a lot of responsibility. It’s definitely taught me a lot in that area. I’ve learned that you have to work for what you want. If you want something you have to go get it,” she says and adds, “I started off with nothing of my own, and I’ve worked my way up. I have a job I have to work every day after school so I can help pay for this stuff. It’s definitely taught me a lot of work ethic.”
It takes a lot of dedication to train a horse too. For Caitlin that might mean working her horse each night at ten o’clock after she gets off work. It’s all worth it to her though, and she speaks fondly of her mare Foxy, a rescue thoroughbred and the first horse she ever trained.
“That horse is the first horse that got me into riding so much. I just love that mare.”
Caitlin is a senior now, and she plans to go to Colby College and compete on their rodeo team and then finish her equine veterinarian degree at Kansas State. Caitlin has a new horse now that she’s starting for the upcoming season, and no doubt, she’s up to the challenge.
