WPRA News March 2020

TWICE IS NICE Grann Wins Rapid City Once Again By Allie Bohus N orth Dakota cowgirl, Bobbi Grann, has had good luck at the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo in Rapid City, South Dakota. The last two times she has competed, she has left a champion. Grann won Rapid City in 2018, turned out due to weather conditions in 2019, and won it again in 2020. Aboard her 12-year-old gelding, CD Trix, whom she calls “Delfinion” the duo flew through the tiny pattern and stopped the clock in a blistering time of 12.38 seconds.

him and won a few ProRodeos on him as well. “Flying is a whole difference experience than driving, that’s for sure,” said Bobbi Grann, who flew into Rapid City on Friday before her performance started, made her run, and flew back the very next day. “I was there for less than 24 hours.” Grann felt so blessed to win Rapid City again. When she won it in 2018, her win catapulted her ahead in the Circuit Standings and really set her up well for the rest of her year. This year she was grateful to have the “jump” in the standings. “It seriously is such a great circuit rodeo to get the year started with… This year they moved the stakes and moved the barrels off the fence a bit, so that shrunk the pattern down a bit,” she said. “Delfinion is a really ‘ratey’ horse and he’s really fast. My sister reminded me to just ride him hard. We got pretty close to the first barrel, but stayed off the other two. He clocks because he is SO fast.” Grann was lucky to have drawn up in one of the later performances because the ground just kept getting better “which is pretty typical for a winter rodeo where they bring the dirt in, so props to the committee and producers,” she said. There were girls who placed in the first performances, the last performances, and slack, so Grann was grateful for the ground being even throughout the rodeo. Her plans for the rest of the year are to continue working with her (many) young horses and going to a lot of jackpots. She is spending the winter in Texas and will travel back home to North Dakota to circuit rodeo the rest of the season. “I always like to shoot for the Circuit Finals, so I will go for that this year,” she said.

Not to mention, this was the first time Grann had gotten on Delfinion in a year and a half! He got injured before Rapid City in 2018, and Grann had to get on her back-up horse, a mare she called Bee, whom she won the rodeo on. After his injury, he had a full year off and has currently been recuperating in North Dakota this winter, and Grann’s sister, Lacey Grann, has been riding him. “My sister had been calling me saying he feels SO good. I said I want to enter Rapid City, but the weather is always so sketchy, so I decided to buy a flight up there,” said Bobbi Grann, who had her sister haul her horse down to Rushmore Plaza. “Delfinion has been in North Dakota all winter. There were days when my sister was sending me snap chats of her out riding and it was 20 below, so it’s absolutely incredible he was competitive.” Delfinion is a smaller horse who actually prefers big outdoor pens, so Rapid City was his first major indoor rodeo. She bought him as a 5-year-old and trained him while she was college rodeoing for Dickinson State University where she graduated with her Bachelors Degree in Natural Resource Management and Range Management in 2014. She has qualified for the Badlands Circuit Finals three times on

MARCH 2020 WPRA NEWS 29

Made with FlippingBook Publishing Software