story by Lily Weinacht
Lexie Crawford of Hesperus, Colorado, is the 2018 CSHSRA Girls Cutting Champion. This is the 18-year-old’s second season of rodeo and her first state title, which she took home after placing either first or second in all four rounds at state finals in Craig, Colorado. Lexie, who Was also on the 2017-2018 High School Cinch Team in the cutting, won the average at state finals as well after leading the girls cutting standings for much of the season. “Once I started rodeo, I took off with it, and now I’m trying to better myself,” says Lexie, who qualified for the NHSFR last year as well, and also competes in breakaway roping. She plans to continue cutting and wants to take her breakaway roping to the professional level in the WPRA.
Mike Crawford, Lexie’s dad, rode saddle broncs in high school and her mom, Diana Crawford, was a brand inspector and worked in an auction, helping Lexie into the horse world, where she started working for several cutting trainers in high school. “I went to a local cutting near my house to see what it was all about, and my trainer that got me into cutting, Les Bates, needed someone who was able to ride well and I started working for him from then on.” Lexie also works on her breakaway roping with Shane Hatch, who won the CNFR in tie-down roping in 1993, and competed in her first NCHA show in Moriarty, New Mexico, last fall. “I won it, which was very cool, because Les Bates and Mike Wood helped me,” says Lexie, who was also the Durango Fiesta Days Rodeo Queen last year and hopes to compete for PRCA rodeo queen titles in the future. “I like roping right now because its newer to me and it’s more of an adrenaline rush, but I like cutting because it’s more of a technical sport and I’ve been doing it a little longer. Cutting has helped me with being focused in everything. When you’re coming out of the box, you have to stay focused, and the same thing with cutting—you have to focus on the cow, and every move that it makes, you have to read.”
She purchased her cutting horse, Save Our Boonsmal, whom she calls Caesar, from her trainer Les Bates. “I was able to ride Caesar before I bought him, and I knew he was a pretty cool horse. Cutters quit their horses when they’re 6 and he’s about 20, but when he cuts, he acts like he’s about 3 years old. My rope horse, Skip, is out of a Skipper W, and he has a really funny personality. We tie Caesar up where he can’t untie himself, but he’ll untie Skip and let him go, or let the other horses loose.”
Lexie practices as often as possible and goes to work cattle at Les’s arena before a competition. In between rodeos and cutting shows, she works at a Ford dealership and on her family’s cattle ranch. The sixth generation of her family to work on the ranch, Lexie enjoys helping her family raise hay and cattle. She recently graduated from Durango High School—though she forewent her graduation ceremony to compete at state finals—and plans to take a gap year to rodeo before going into nursing. “I’ve been going to San Juan College in New Mexico for the last two years. A lot of it was online and I got my prerequisites out of the way,” she finishes. “I would eventually like to gain a national title. The cutting shows are really fun and I know a lot of people there, and in breakaway, I’m trying to get my WPRA card pretty soon.”
