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up the for the extra time off, but you can tell she feels like she owes it to them. They’ve supported and encouraged her to follow her dream. “I go hard, to be honest with you,” she said matter-of-factly. “Between travelling for rodeos and work in between, if I take time off, I work three times as hard before I leave or when I come back.” Between high school rodeos with her children and her own campaign, she’ll tell you she hasn’t had a weekend at home since May. It’s not a complaint, though. There’s nowhere she’d rather be than on the rodeo trail with her husband, and her two children, Paige and Jaxson. “I love it. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I get to do what I love in the salon and with rodeo. We share the rodeo stuff as a family. It’s a huge passion of all ours,” said Gartner. “If the house is in a mess and there’s no food in the fridge, but we’re out in the arena it’s a happy day. “You know, you sit there and you dream about it and you pray about it and you meditate and you’re like, ‘I’m gonna do this, this is gonna be awesome, this is a goal,’” she explained. “I’m a big vision board person and Pendleton Round Up Champion has been on my vision board for the last four years. You think about what it’s going to be like to do, and you walk through it you’re like, ‘Okay, what’s next? Where do I go from here.’”
Barrel racer Kacey Gartner was on cloud 9 as she made her victory lap at the famed Pendleton Round-Up. Photo by Molly Morrow
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Fortier watched the other performances from work. She got a call from Camp. “You better start driving,” he told her. The daughter and mother left Montana late in the afternoon and arrived at the rodeo grounds at 3 a.m. “We slept a few hours and showed mom some of the sites,” said Fortier. She also found a video of her calf for the Finals but stayed quiet. “I knew he was so good,” Fortier said. “I didn’t want to say anything. I knew I would have a chance of winning on that calf if I don’t mess him up. I had a good idea I could win or place pretty deep. But didn’t say it out loud. “I like running on the grass. My horse is kind of ranchy. He knows where his feet are. We left him barefoot.” First out, Fortier set the bar with a smooth throw.
“I did take an extra swing, I don’t know why,” she said with a laugh. “I made sure that sucker was caught, I knew it was going to be a good day. She collected her rope and took a spot along the fence to watch the rest of the competition. When the announcer said the leader was 6.0, Fortier realized, “That’s me.” When the last roper finished, Fortier turned to Camp. “What just happened?” she asked her friend. “You just won Pendleton,” replied Camp. After receiving her championship saddle, buckle and other prizes, Fortier stayed to watch Montana barrel racer Cierra Erickson finished seventh in barrel racing. With her mother and Angela Lockwood – who had been traveling with her sister barrel racer Lisa Lockhart – driving, the group arrived in Missoula, Montana. Fortier drove the rest of the way home. The next day she found herself at a roping, taking a picture with former Pendleton Round-Up winners Tryan, Parker Breding and Scott Breding. “Because of Caden this happened. It still hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Fortier. “I was in shock. My mom, she was excited. Having my mom there made the whole trip worth it.”
Jacey Fortier is glad she kept her promise to haul a friend’s horse to Pendleton and that she decided to go ahead and try her skills in the breakaway roping. As a result, she got to make a victory lap around the Let’er Buck Arena in Pendleton and be announced as the 2022 Pendleton Round-Up Breakaway Roping champion. Photo by Molly Morrow
It will be a winner’s circle that Jacey Fortier will never forget. Fortier was all smiles when receiving the famous Pendleton prize package for winning the breakaway roping and she was glad her mom was there to celebrate with her. Photo by Jackie Jensen
OCTOBER 2022 WPRA NEWS 23
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