Featured Athlete: Nollie Launius
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ProFile: Sidney Amos
Sidney cutting on Yabba Dabba Dual at the 2015 National High School Finals - JenningsRodeoPhotography.com
Written by: Maya
< Back to ArticlesSidney Amos from Loma, Colo., is the 2015 NHSFR Girls Cutting Champion, rodeoing for Utah High School Rodeo Association. “We live 14 miles from the Utah border.” Her dad, Scott, is a cutting horse trainer, so Sidney has been riding cutting horses her entire life. “I started showing three years ago,” said the 16-year-old. “It’s my drug. It’s the only sport I compete in – I just love it.” Her sister, Sommer, in 8th grade, wants to start team roping and wants her to start. “I like my fingers,” she said about team roping. “I think I’m going to start with breakaway.” Sidney has an older brother, Suade, who is 19. He graduated two years ago and team ropes and breaks colts and competes in the cutting as well. Sidney’s mom, Rebecca, is a stay at home mom. She’s not really a horse person, “but she cheers from the stands a lot.”
Scott started breaking colts in Oklahoma and later met Tim Denton, who helped him get started in cutting. He moved his family to Loma 20 years ago and began training cutting horses. Loma is a very small close-knit farming town. “We are the only horse trainer in the Grand Valley that I know of. We have around 37 horses on the place right now,” she said. “I help in the barn after school, on the weekends, and all summer long. I saddle, unsaddle and wash horses. We have a full time stall person, but I do that sometimes too.” Sidney loves having that many horses around. “Their personalities are all different and it’s great having that many horses to ride. When my dad’s gone I lope all the horses and help him at shows too.” Sidney shows in the NCHA shows as well as the high school.
Sidney admits she was really nervous the first round of the NHSFR. “I had such a good horse, I just had to concentrate on myself.” She did that by keeping to herself on the outside of the arena, loping. “Once I start loping, I can relax.” Clint Allen trained her horse, Dual Pep and sr Getting Busy, and the owners had turned him out to pasture and not ridden him a whole lot. “I had a horse that I was riding that turned out lame, and we called a bunch of our friends that knew about this horse. We went to work on him bringing him back to performance level. It’s taken about a year to figure him out. He’s really high strung, but he’s the kindest horse I’ve ever owned.” The pair clicked at the high school finals. Out of a possible 160, she got a 150 the first round and second round and a 152 the short go.
Sidney is hoping to win state this year, missing it by four points. She also wants to go to more NCHA shows and get her earnings up. When she graduates from high school in two years, she plans to go to CSU and be an Equine Reproduction Vet. “I’ve been there to part of the campus, just the vet part, to drop a horse off. I’ve always had a love of the vet industry and our vet has taught me a lot and I want to be in that field. I love seeing the new stock in the industry and especially the babies.”
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