six seconds of bliss for legendary cowgirl story and photos by KEN LEVY Editor, Seasons of the 208 One Incredible Idahoan
twice after age 50, in 1994 and 1995 in Ft. Worth. In 1995, the horse she drew was buck- ing hard, and “my rigging started to shift, but it stayed on just as the whistle blew, and I won the world.” She made the Guinness Book of World Re- cords at Sierra Vista, AZ in 2001 “for riding bareback horses longer than anybody else.” She broke that record for four more years. In 2003, at another rodeo in Sierra Vista, “I beat two daughters and two granddaughters two days in a row on the broncs. I was pretty proud of myself.” Her later years “were always shining moments because I was by far the oldest one compet- ing. I was beating kids that were younger than my kids. And if I didn’t win, I had to give ex- cuses, like I was too old. That’s riding a horse both ways.” Her career ended in 2005, when she finished third overall in the Women’s Professional Ro- deo Association circuit and kept a promise. Jan rode against daughters and granddaugh- ters and defeated them most of the time, but she vowed to retire when one of her grand- daughters topped her score for the year. Granddaughter Tavia took second place that year, and Jan kept her word, even though she beat Tavia in the finals. how it all began She got her start when she was just five years old. Her late father Sterling Alley—himself a roughstock rodeo and wild horse racing com- petitor in his day—gave her a yearling filly, and said if she could break her, she could have her. “That little rip bucked me off many times,” Jan said. “One day I had ridden her down a hard dirt road and she bucked me off. I didn’t want to get back on her, but that was a rule: if you got bucked off you got back on, you didn’t come leading a horse home. She got me used to hitting the ground.” In 1955, when she was 11 years old, Sterling put on the first full all-girl rodeo in Idaho.
Few things conjure up thoughts of Idaho more than the excitement and thrills of the rodeo. And when it comes to legendary world champions, look no further than Garden Val- ley for the lady’s all-time world champion roughstock rider. Jan Youren, now 81, was a bucking bronco badass. She won five world championships in bareback bronc riding, with 17 reserve cham- pionships (“first loser,” she dubs them), and 13 reserve championships in bull riding. She rodeoed for 51 years, battling for the six-sec- ond whistle in bucking broncs and bull riding.
Over those 51 years, Youren broke virtually every record ever kept for a woman rough- stock rider. She was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, now in Ft. Worth, in 1993. That induction honors women of the American west “who have made and are making a last- ing impact in and around horse culture.” She was also inducted into the Idaho Rodeo Hall of Fame, which is “dedicated to preserv- ing and promoting Western American Heri- tage and culture,” in 2015.
Jan Youren shows off a few of her “hundreds” of belt buckles she garnered over 51 years in the rodeo.
broken but undaunted Tough, undaunted and persevering, she took a lot of hurt over the years, with injuries that would have cut short most other rodeo ca- reers. But, she said, “rodeo is addictive,” with more of an adrenaline high than any drug might produce. But championships can be painful, to say the least. Jan broke nearly every bone in her body in the course of her competitions. “When I was on the Conan O’Brien show (June 1996) he asked me how many bones I broke. It was a lot easier to tell him how many I haven’t. I have one rib that’s never been bro- ken, and I never broke either leg. Other than that, I got ‘em all.” “All” means breaking her nose 14 times and her cheekbones eight times, and fighting through numerous dislocated shoulder and other injuries. She’s broken her neck and her back, and doctors told her repeatedly to quit the sport long before she did. “I tell everybody I used to be good looking, but they just laugh at me.” Possibly her worst injuries came in an event in Colville, WA in 1980 when a bull stomped her, breaking ribs, collapsing a lung and bruis- ing her heart. She still breathes with only one lung. But Jan won the world championships
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Jan Youren readies “Arrow” for a ride at her Garden Valley ranch.
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