Canadian barrel racer Cranna Roberts, of Red Deer, Alberta, capitalized on her entry at the Royal Crown Open Barrel Race in Buckeye, Arizona, back in February to earn a trip to the Women’s Rodeo World Championships (WRWC) at Fort Worth Stockyards, May 16-18, which features the top female athletes in rodeo. By nominating the Royal Crown race, Roberts earned a Generic qualification as the highest placing Challenger.
The WRWC features the Top 40 women in the world going head-to-head in team roping, breakaway roping, and barrel racing. A collective $750,000 will be on the line, with $182,500 being paid out in each discipline and each event champion leaving the Cowtown Coliseum with a minimum of $60,000. Each event champion will walk away with $60,000 while the all-around world champion will earn a $20,000 cash bonus. WRWC will also award each world champion a $5,000 bonus per discipline per leaderboard.
Read: “Women’s Rodeo World Championship Reveals 2022 Event Schedule”
Where to Watch: Fans can watch the historic event on PlutoTV (Ridepass, Channel 720) May 16-17, while the May 18 Showdown and Triple Crown of Rodeo Round will be LIVE on a CBS Sports Network Broadcast at 7:30 p.m. CT.
Roberts teamed with a 2012 mare Blurr The Judge (“Sadie”), sired by Judge Cash and out of the JD Look mare First Look Here, purchased by her husband, David, as a 5-year-old.
“She’s one I’ve taken to rodeos and done well with, run 17.4s and .5s, but she had been out about a year before the Buckeye race, I just brought her back in October,” said Roberts. “She’d had a respiratory infection and we just couldn’t find the right thing to get it resolved all the way, so her breathing had been limited. I’d packed her around with me to rodeos and barrel races, but she still didn’t seem quite right. It took a long time, but she finally came around.”
Roberts says that when the World Champions Rodeo Alliance (WCRA) and WRWC began offering the opportunity to nominate open events via the Virtual Rodeo Qualifier (VRQ), she was guilty at times of forgetting to participate in the nomination process, but prior to the Royal Crown a text message from WCRA headquarters served as a friendly reminder.
Roberts remarked that she nominated via the VRQ and hoped that “Super Sadie” would show up, since a running joke between she and her husband is that sometimes Sadie is indeed super and at other times not as much. But at the Royal Crown Sadie was all in, posting a 17.521 on Friday and a 17.476 on Sunday to be the fastest nominated Challenger barrel racer. Roberts earned $480 in Fast Cash as the Challenger winner.
“We’ll go home and regroup before Fort Worth,” she said. “We’ve got some mares to foal out at home, then make the short (wink) trip back. We have a small breeding operation. I’ve got some mares that I’ve made the Canadian Finals Rodeo on that are retired now that we breed to outside studs. My daughter Coby looks after the ranch when Dave and I are gone. We like spending time in Arizona or Texas in the winter since Canada is very limited on rodeos in the winter months for sure.”
Sadie is partial to shorter courses, making Cowtown Coliseum in historic Fort Worth Stockyards an alluring venue for Roberts.
“She seems to like confined spaces better,” said Roberts. “Wide open spaces are not as much to her liking. Fences are good.”
Roberts adds that Sadie is not without her quirks either.
“She is very partial to her people. She doesn’t like change a lot, I’d say Sadie has a large personality. She can be a little extra, which has been at times a challenge, but she’s a very capable, talented horse.”
Look for Roberts and Sadie when the WRWC kicks off in just under two weeks in Fort Worth. Visit WRWC.rodeo for more information.
