WILDERNESS CIRCUIT: BREAKAWAY
Ticket Punched Hill Wins Second Wilderness Circuit Finals Year- End, First Trip To NFR Open
By Allie Bohus 2 020 was the first year the Wilderness Circuit had breakaway roping. Thatcher, Utah cowgirl Addy Hill won the year-end at the Wilderness Circuit Finals but unfortunately for Hill, the (then) RAM National Circuit Finals Rodeo was cancelled that year due to COVID, plus breakaway had not been added as an event yet to the national stage. That all changed in 2022. Not only did Hill win the year-end in the breakaway at the Wilderness Circuit Finals Rodeo, but she also won the coveted average title! “It felt very lucky and grateful… I’m just super excited!” she said. When Hill won the year-end in 2020 she had a pretty big lead in the standings going into the circuit finals. No one, mathematically, could catch her so the pressure was off. This year was a little different. She was still placed high in the standings but nothing was solidified. Her game plan was straightforward. “I’m just going to take each calf as I can and see how it goes and stay focused,” she said. It paid off. She was out of the money in the first round, but still caught her calf keeping her in the average. “I actually really didn’t set myself up; I was pretty late on the score. I kind of had to run him down. I just knew I had to get him caught, so I was a little longer.” The second and third rounds she came back with a vengeance and roped tougher each run. She won the second round with a 3.0 and won the third round, with the fast time of the rodeo, a 2.3 - nearly a full second ahead of second place finisher Candida Eldridge. “I knew I just needed to get him caught in the second round and stay focused. I knew I had to just take each calf, each time and not get ahead of myself. Going into the short round, I needed to take the calf as it came and I was lucky to draw a good calf and my horse worked awesome, she set me up perfect,” Hill beamed.
Hill’s breakaway horse is an 11-year-old bay mare, Miss Carelena Prom, whom she calls “Bailey” and is one of those one-in-a-million horses. Hill does ‘literally everything’ on her. When she is not doing eyelash extensions or running her western boutique, Sagebrush Dolls, (@sagebrush_dolls) she and her husband (former PRCA Tie-Down Roper, Cody Hill) day work at a working cattle ranch in Northern Utah. Hill uses Bailey for all aspects of ranch work: branding, doctoring, sorting, gathering, etc. “She’s the only horse I ride when I go to ranch rodeos and team brandings,” Hill said. She is also a heck of a breakaway horse! Like most ranch horses turned rodeo horses, “she always stays super calm and focused, and does her job every time. She’s been my top horse for a long time.” As important as superior horsepower is, horsemanship is equally if not more important. Hill proves to be a horseman. She and her husband train horses, and “I have rodeoed for my whole life. My parents grew up rodeoing, my siblings roped. I’ve been rodeoing since I was 4-years-old,” she said. She competed in junior rodeo, high school rodeo (qualifying for the National High School Finals Rodeo twice, and winning the Silver State International Rodeo in the All-Around her senior year), before college rodeoing for two years at Weber State University (Ogden, UT). “I used to team rope a lot more than breakaway, but now I don’t really team rope as much. There are a lot more opportunities in the breakaway; it’s pretty dang cool,” she said. Winning the Wilderness Circuit Finals year-end and average titles was ‘icing on the cake’ for Hill who roped at the circuit finals 15 weeks pregnant and is due to have her first baby this coming May. ‘It was just a good end before I become a mom. I’m definitely not going to be done rodeoing; it will just be a little different,” she said. She looks forward to competing at the NFR Open a few months postpartum. Addy Hill roped her way to the average title in the Wilderness Circuit in a time of 9.1 seconds on three. Hill was the only one to have three clean runs. She also captured the year-end title with $13,364. Delaney Kunau was second and will join Hill in representing the circuit. Photo by Amanda Dilworth
Addy Hill takes home two titles at the Wilderness Circuit Finals Rodeo in 2022. Hill captured both the average and year-end title to easily secure her spot at the 2023 NFR Open. She will be looking to add a national title to her resume in July. Photo by Amanda Dilworth
DECCEMBER 2022
WOMEN’S PRO RODEO NEWS 27
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