story by Ruth Nicolaus
Mable McAbee is a roper. She loves barrel racing, but roping is her first love.
After a successful four years in the Nebraska High School Rodeo Association, the eighteen-year-old cowgirl is now a freshman at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, where she competes collegiately in the same events she competed in, in high school: breakaway roping, team roping, goat tying, and barrel racing.
Roping was the first event she ever did, and she’s roped as long as she can remember: the dog, when she first started, and then later, with her dad, as they worked around the ranch, doctoring cattle. Larrry, Lori and Cole Tierney of Broken Bow helped Mable with her roping. Along with her dad, “they helped form my love” for the sport.
In high school, she trained three of the four horses she rode. Her main mount, for the breakaway, team roping and sometimes the goat tying, was an eleven-year-old mare, Stella, a sorrel. Pawnee, a seven-year-old chocolate bay, was her backup horse for goats and breakaway, and for the barrels, she had two horses: Boone, an eight-year-old chestnut gelding, and Doctor, a seventeen-year-old bay gelding. Doctor was the only horse she didn’t train.
Mable, who grew up in Ansley, is a 2018 graduate of Ansley High School. In high school, she was point guard for the basketball team, vice-president of her class, and involved in FFA, One Acts, Quiz Bowl, FCA, and the community youth group. She had a 4.0 grade point average and was on the Principal’s List.
This summer, Mable worked on the family ranch six miles from Ansley, helping with the everyday duties like checking cattle and water, doctoring cattle, and occasionally fixing fence (although her brothers did most of that.) She also day worked for Adams Land and Cattle.
For fun, she loves to hunt with her brothers: prairie dogs, raccoons, and deer.
Mable has a filly on the ground from a special mare. Misty was the first horse that she trained herself, and she barrel raced on her from seventh through tenth grade. Misty got hurt and was unable to compete, but Mable didn’t want to give her up. So she bred her to Aint Seen Nothing Yet. She’s named the filly Rousey, after the wrestler, because the filly is well-muscled.
If she were given $1 million, Mable would buy a ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills, some performance horses, and hopefully have money left over for entry fees and fuel.
She admires Lori Tierney and how she ropes, because “she ropes with such aggressiveness and so correctly, and she’s such a fun personality. I really look up to her. She’s taught me so much and she’s an inspiration to me.”
Mable is studying to be a chiropractor; she hopes to also become an equine chiropractor. After college, she’d like to continue to rodeo in the regional associations and professionally. She’ll never quit roping, but she’d also like to qualify for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. “Ultimately I want to run down that alley at the Thomas and Mack someday” in the barrel racing.
Mable qualified for the Nebraska High School Finals Rodeo all four years of high school. As a member of the Southwestern Oklahoma State rodeo team, she has been finishing in the top thirteen in the barrel racing at the college rodeos.
She has two younger brothers: B.J., who is seventeen, and Brody, who is sixteen. She is the daughter of Brett and Jaime McAbee.
