story by Lily Weinacht
Heather Constantinople is a barrel racer in the APRA and WPRA First Frontier Circuit, and the daughter of 10-time First Frontier Circuit Bull Riding Champion, John Constantinople. She competed in the APRA for the 2002 season, then returned in 2016 with the goal of qualifying for the finals her first season back. She qualified for AFR 39, but the 32 year old from Prospect, Connecticut, admits the season looked defeated from the start. She was hitting barrels in nine out of ten runs when she decided to compete primarily in Pond Hill’s rodeos from Fourth of July through Labor Day Weekend. “My horse is small, but he’s not a small pen horse, and Pond Hill has one of the bigger arenas here with an alleyway. That really fires him up,” Heather explains. “I think because of that pen, it let my horse free up, and since running there, he’s a different machine!
“The APRA finals didn’t go as well as I would’ve loved, since my horse has never been inside with a crowd, but I was more prepared the second day,” she adds. “We had a better run, and it brought a few things to light for me. He’s been running left the past two years, but he has more talent turning to the right and he’s so quick that he’d leave me behind. For 2017, we’re going to start off on the right and see where it leads us.”
Streakin For Chicks, out of DTB Can’t Touch This, has been Heather’s barrel horse the last six years. In 2010, she was considering taking a break from rodeo until one of her close friends, Judy Dahota-Taylor, showed Heather a video of the horse, raised by WNFR qualifier and trainer Gail Hillman and her husband. “He was four years old with sixty days on him, and I ended up buying him based on the video,” says Heather. “He came up from Texas, and he’s talented. He’s lazy – it took a whole summer to get him to lope a circle – but when you turn him loose up the alleyway, he’s a game changer.”
Heather’s first barrel horse, Gypsy, traveled with her to Alaska, Texas, and back to Connecticut. “We moved a lot because my step-dad was in the military,” Heather explains. “My step-grandfather raised race horses, and he was retiring from it, so he gave me Gypsy, one of the last of his babies.” Heather and Gypsy competed in NBHA events and the APRA once Heather moved back to Connecticut. She took a hiatus from rodeo to attend college at Tarleton State University, then returned to compete in the IPRA and fill her permit in the WPRA. She recently finished her MBA at the University of Bridgeport, and also works full time for Hartford Insurance as a customer care specialist.
“I have a passion for horses, and I would be a very unhappy person without them,” says Heather. “I grew up playing around with pole bending, and we dabbled in roping, but I love the thrill of running up the alleyway. And just because you’re not on top doesn’t mean the next rodeo won’t go well. There’s always redemption the next week. I look up to my father because he’s the whole reason I was around horses and rodeo. Once I moved back to Connecticut, I got in touch with Judy and her mom, Gigi, and Eileen Lang-Kramme, all people my dad rodeoed with. They really helped me with my riding and training. My goal was always to compete at the First Frontier Finals with my dad, but he’s retired. Now my goal is to go out there and do my best, make a name for myself, and stand beside him.”
