Breanne Burr

TSRA Meet the Member: Breanne Burr

Breanne Burr

story by Lindsay Whelchel

Breanne Burr, 25, is well versed when it comes to the sport of barrel racing. She’s been running her horse around three cans for years.
But what she was unfamiliar with was rodeo. This marks the first year the Tri-State Rodeo Association cowgirl has competed in a rodeo setting.
“I’ve always done barrel racing. When I was younger I did all the speed events like the poles and quads and stakes. I started out in 4H, and they had all the events, and I had a pony and a big horse and have just always been on the back of a horse,” Breanne explains but clarifies that beyond 4H and NBHA barrel races, it was uncharted territory.
Breanne, who lives in Vicksburg, Miss., got her love of horses from her mother Shelby who grew up on a pony farm. Her dad Bob was less acquainted with the horse world until his daughter dove head first into it as a child.
She also has a sister, Ashley, but it’s Shelby and Breanne’s dog that are her two travel companions now on the road.
The rodeo bug has bitten Breanne, enough so that she joined Tri-State to see how she and her main barrel horse Snickers would fare.  Snickers is an 8-year-old grandson of the legendary Dash ta Fame and is a horse Breanne trained herself.   When it comes to her horses, training is a big part of Breanne’s life.
“I’ve picked up a lot of stuff from a lot of different people,” Breanne says of learning the techniques, and adds that she starts the horses out slow and doesn’t push them hard until they are around 6. “The biggest thing about training is never be close-minded. I try to be open to different ways. When I ride one I try to fit to their style instead of making them my style. None of mine run the same,” she laughs.
Those techniques are paying off. She’s at the top of the Tri-State standings and set to make the finals this year in her first rodeo run. Next year she would like to try pro-rodeos. It’s been a challenge to have the confidence to compete in the rodeo environment but one Breanne has met head on.
“When you have the rodeo scene, you know whenever you’re entering that alleyway that you have to give it your all and try your hardest, because there are no other Ds to fall in if you have mistakes. You know you’ve got to go in there and make a perfect run and ride hard and just hope it places, because it’s straightforward,” she says and explains, “at big shows if you have a bobble here and a bobble there you might end up in another D, but it makes you want to get up and hustle and ride,” Breanne says of rodeo.
When Breanne isn’t running barrels she’s enjoying helping others in her work as a surgical technician or relaxing on the lake and tubing on the river. But most of the time, she’s on her way to the next race.  She just competed, and placed, at the Mega, a large barrel race in Jackson, Miss.
No matter what she’s doing though, Breanne focuses on keeping God first.  “When things get hard or you’re not doing good and stuff is not going your way, my thing is just keep God first. No matter what, even if it’s good times or bad times,” she says. And it’s the good times on the arena clock that Breanne chases hardest.

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