LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Ayvree Smith sits tall in the saddle aboard Julie, a 9-year-old quarter horse.
And that’s just as you’d expect from a horse and rider team that has captured a state championship and one of nine California district titles in barrel racing.
So far.
Ayvree, an eighth grade student at Lower Lake Elementary School, and Julie may be destined for even greater accomplishment at the 10th annual National Junior High Finals Rodeo in Des Moines, Iowa, starting next Sunday, June 22.
The rodeo runs for the entire week, culminating Saturday, June 28, with nationally televised competition between the top 20 in each event.
Qualifiers will compete for $100,000 in scholarships.
Ayvree won the trip to Des Moines by finishing first in a field of 45 junior high barrel racers.
The junior high riders she will be racing against are the best from a field of 42 states, five Canadian provinces and Australia.
By earning a spot on the California National Junior High Riding Team, she is qualified to compete in two other events: Pole bending, which is a serpentine race against time through a series of poles, and breakaway, an event in which the riders break from a chute to rope a calf.
Given its comparatively small population of 60,000, state championships in any activity are a rarity in Lake County. Ayvree won hers on a borrowed horse and in only her second year of barrel racing
Bryan Smith, Ayvree's father, said the horse belongs to Lower Lake rancher Craig Evans, who also taught Ayvree how to ride the brown mare.
“He (Evans) is a friend of mine,” said Bryan Smith. “I’ve known him for a long time, about 20 years. My son, Tate, has rodeoed with his son.”
Julie, said Ayvree, does everything that is asked of her.
“She’s an angel,” said Ayvree.
“Ayvree kind of lets her go and she does her own thing,” said Bryan Smith.
Ayvree did her original training on a family-owned Appaloosa.
“She started when she was just a young girl in pigtails,” Bryan Smith said.
Email John Lindblom at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .