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then barrel racing before making the transition to breakaway roping last winter in Arizona. “This was the first year he was hauled as a breakaway roping horse,” Christensen said the horse registered as Cnotes Featureplease and out of WK Frenchmans Bonita by Large Bills Please. “He scores well, runs well and stops hard.” And while customary to share winnings with the horse’s owner, Christensen has yet to cut a check to her mother. “I haven’t yet. I’m kind of letting that slide,” said the daughter with a good laugh. “I think I stole him.” Having grown up around rodeo – her father team ropes and her mother runs barrels – Christensen has been throwing a rope since a young age. “I’ve done it my whole life,” she said. Christensen won the South Dakota high school state title as a freshman and was a three-time qualifier for the National High School Finals Rodeo. Christensen went on to compete at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she was the Central Rocky Mountain breakaway roping champion in 2015. “Hopefully I’ll enter some winter rodeos,” said Christensen said of her 2023. “Last year, Cheyenne, Greeley and Sheridan were the only ones I went out of state.” Traveling with team roper Tucker McDaniel and his wife Kelsey, Christensen returned home Sunday night from Minot.
of the high-paying rodeo scheduled for next July in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “I didn’t think I could win the year-end, so I better catch three. “The NFR Open, it’s really a great opportunity to rope for that much money.” She jumped from 10th to third in the final circuit standings. Samantha Fulton, of Miller, South Dakota, won the year-end title with $14,319 for 2022. She placed in all three rounds at the circuit finals and was second in the average with 7.9 seconds. Her winning time of 1.9 seconds in the third round was the fastest of the event. Fulton qualified for the Wrangler National Finals Breakaway Roping in Las Vegas. She earned $6,176 in Minot to leap from sixth to first in the standings. Sawyer Gilbert, of Buffalo, South Dakota, the 2021 WPRA world champion, was third in the average with 8.9 seconds. Gilbert was also second in the year-end standings. “No, it was not intimidating,” said Christensen of competing against the super-quick field. “I’ve been around them quite a while.” Christensen won aboard Whiskey, a nine-year-old gray gelding owned by her mother. The horse was initially used in team roping,
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