story by Lindsay Humphrey
Low and slow was the name of the game for Lindsey Evers for a large majority of her equestrian-focused life, but she’s kicked it into high gear in the last eight years. Growing up, Lindsey and her parents raised paint horses mostly destined for the show pen. “We would have anywhere from three to six colts every year,” said the Ravenna, Nebraska, cowgirl. “By the time I graduated high school I was showing in the all-around events. I had multiple barrel horses for local NBHA and jackpot stuff but we usually stuck to breed shows.” After graduating high school, Lindsey took an internship in Iowa with a pleasure horse trainer and took her long-time show horse along for the ride.
“I thought I was going to be riding a bunch of really nice pleasure horses all day every day but ended up being mostly a colt breaking internship. We probably broke about 60 colts in those six months. It was a really great learning opportunity for me.” Alongside breaking colts, Lindsey was showing her horse in western pleasure, horsemanship, showmanship, trail, hunter under saddle and equitation. At summer’s end, Lindsey moved to Florida to attend the International Academy of Design and Technology to pursue a degree in fashion design and merchandising. “I took my show horse with me and while I was there, I took on some outside horses. The horse world down there is mostly focused on the show pen but I started several horses over fences while I was there also.”
After Lindsey returned to Nebraska, she hit the show circuit in hopes of winning top 20 in the nation through color breed associations. “I ended up second and even though I was pretty excited about it, I was still a little disappointed. I started to step back from the horse show world a bit after that year.” That was in 2012, and a string of barrel prospects would find their way into Lindsey’s life over the next two years. “I enjoyed the relaxed environment of barrel races and that it didn’t matter who you were or how much you paid for your horse, it’s just a very fair world with few politics.”
When Lindsey was growing up, she attended the Sarpy County fair and she always said that one day she would compete in that rodeo. “It [the rodeo] has always been something I admired, but never really had the horse to do. In 2014, I bought a little mare, Tipsy, from Missouri.” The pair first competed in almost two feet of mud in Tekamah, Nebraska. “I remember driving home and calling a friend, telling them that I had finally found a rodeo horse.” Getting Tipsy on the straight and narrow took every skill Lindsey had gained from her time breaking and training horses. “My first year with her was a struggle just figuring out her issues, but by the end of it she was clocking fairly well. When she didn’t want to go somewhere, she would rear up. She used to do that at the gate, but I found out that she got a lot of comfort from having someone walk her to the gate.”
Today, Tipsy is retired after a mystery lameness permanently sidelined her in 2018. Lindsey competes on Bama (Always On The Money) who used to be her backup mount. “She ended up doing really well once I started focusing on her more. We qualified for the IRA finals in 2019 after only ten rodeos and we went into finals in sixth place.” Bama and Lindsey won the average for the weekend. They’ve also taken first and second at some pro rodeos. But now that Lindsey lives further west, her focus is on the M-SRA. “Mid States is very competitive; it is as tough as some of the pro rodeos. The big attraction for the association is the payout. The directors, committees and board all work really hard to make it a good association for everyone.”
