BACK-TO-BACK Mowry Defends Her Title in San Antonio By Kristen M. White A victory in San Antonio is on the bucket list for a lot of barrel racers and can go a long way to securing a spot in the
Wrangler NFR at the end of the year. So, to win it back- to-back, and in a very unexpected fashion, was all the sweeter this year for Kassie Mowry. Mowry, of Dublin, Texas, switched horses midway through the rodeo and didn’t have huge expectations. So, when she walked away from a lightning-fast final round with a time of 13.68 seconds - and the victory - she was shocked and thrilled. “The first girl out of the gate in the finals was a 13.8 and that was insanely fast for that arena, and it was just 13 after 13,” Mowry said. “There weren’t many hit barrels either that I heard, and I was just sort of laughing to myself. I was last out and it honestly just kind of took the pressure off of me. I had no expectations and just let it happen.” She recalled exiting the arena after her run and being raced off her horse onto the truck for the victory lap - she didn’t even know her time until the rodeo was over because the crowd was so loud and electric, and everything happened so quickly.
To win the barrel racing title at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo once is an accomplishment but to win it in back-to-back years on different horses is astonishing. That is exactly what Kassie Mowry did in 2023 and 2024. In 2023, she captured the title aboard CP He Will Be Epic “Will” and while the grey gelding got her to the finals in 2024, Mowry had to make a horse change for the semifinals due to an injury Will sustained at home. So, Force the Goodbye “Jarvis” got the call and handled it like a champ carrying Mowry to her second title in the Alamo City. Photo by Kay Miller
Part of why Mowry was astonished with the accomplishment is because she was riding her horse Force the Goodbye “Jarvis” for the semi- and final rounds, after having run CP He Will Be Epic “Will” in the early rounds. She said the day before going back to San Antonio for the semi- finals, she was riding Will at home, and he spooked, and his muscles cramped. She knew she couldn’t continue to ride him at San Antonio, so she turned to 6-year-old Jarvis. “He hadn’t done a run in a month. I’d been trying to get my colts caught up and there’s construction at my place and so I had barely even ridden Jarvis in a month, but he’s always a good choice. I thought, ‘I know this horse can clock, but is he ready?’” She recalled. “So, I went out and figured I’d make the best of it. I had realistic expectations - I knew he could do great things, but he’s also still sort of green, and we weren’t prepared.” In their first run together at San Antonio, Jarvis showed he was ready, whether or not Mowry had been expecting it. He clocked a 14.18 to finish second in the semi-finals 1 round, moving her to the finals where he laid down the blistering run and won the whole thing. “San Antonio is a really prestigious rodeo and it’s one of my all- time favorites through the years, whether I’ve done good there or not,” Mowry said. “I don’t think it’s sunk in, really, that I won it back-to- back. Just switching horses like that, I was pretty blown away with what Jarvis did. It was pretty dang cool that he pulled that off!”
“I’ve watched the video of that last run so many times, and it was really fun, kind of an ideal run,” Mowry said. “The whole round was so much fun.”
Kassi Mowry knows the importance to her rodeo and futurity schedules to have a strong showing at the winter ProRodeos. She capitalized on a big opportunity for the second consecutive year winning the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo picking up $22,500 in the process. Photo by Hailey Rae
18 WPRA NEWS MARCH 2024
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