story by Lily Weinacht
Morgan Nelson of Fort Dodge, Iowa, and her family have a 32-hour trip ahead of them in December for the 2018 Junior NFR. Morgan qualified for the prestigious event when she won the senior division at the KK Run for Vegas qualifier in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, held in conjunction with the Go For Broke Barrel Race. Morgan, who had competed in qualifiers in Topeka, Kansas, and Broken Bow, Nebraska, decided to forego family vacation in June to compete in Cedar Rapids, and the 13-year-old and her mare Blueberry, who is just a year younger than Morgan, stopped the clock at 14.720. “I was really nervous before the race, but after that it felt super good because it was the new time to beat. It was really hard to watch the girls after me run to see if they beat me or not,” says Morgan. “We did a few exhibitions before the race to get my horse used to it, but she did pretty good with the arena.”
This is Morgan’s second qualification to the Junior NFR, where she competed in 2016. She placed fifth in the first round, but when her horse cut the alley too close on the second run and knocked Morgan’s leg, it threw off her concentration, taking her out of the short go. “I plan to keep my horse in good shape and be ready for Vegas, and when I go there, I want to make sure I go wide so I don’t take my leg out, and push as hard as I can.” While she and her family were in Las Vegas, they also watched a three-day colt challenge and Morgan went on rides with her friends at the Stratosphere.
The first in her family to run barrels, Morgan was introduced to the sport of rodeo when her 11-year-old brother, Tyson, started riding miniature bulls. “Morgan got drug to all those rodeos and said she wanted to run barrels, but I told her she couldn’t until we moved to the farm,” says Fonda Nelson, Morgan’s mom. “The summer we moved here, we bought her first horse and haven’t gotten her off since.” When Morgan wanted to buy Blueberry several years later, she helped purchase the mare and is now responsible for all of her entry fees and membership dues. “It’s helping her understand the finances and hard work that goes into it, and on the flip side, she decides where she goes to rodeo.”
Morgan also runs barrels in the Iowa Rodeo Cowboys Association. The youngest member of the association, she finished fifth in the year-end last season and is currently leading the IRCA barrel racing standings. “I really enjoy all the people you get to meet and the ones you become friends with, and the traveling is not that bad when you know you’re going to a rodeo,” says Morgan. “I do it because it’s one of my passions and I want to try to make it to the NFR someday.”
She has high hopes that her two-and-a-half-year-old mare, Dash, will carry her to the NFR one day, and plans to start training Dash on barrels soon. Morgan also has her 26-year-old palomino gelding, Buddy, who was her first barrel horse. Her 6-year-old brother, Nathan, runs barrels on him occasionally, while Morgan also has an Australian Shepherd named Hank and several cats. She only had seven days in the month of July when she wasn’t rodeoing, and Morgan uses her free time to work with her horses or meet with her rodeo coach, Frankie Baldwin.
“I’d like to make it to the main NFR when I’m old enough,” she finishes. “I’m sitting first in the IRCA and I’m trying super hard to stay up there. If you win first, you win a saddle—I have lots of buckles, but I’ve never won a saddle before.”
