story by Ruth Nicolaus
Bailey Griebel is her daddy’s right hand man…. and only daughter.
The Colorado High School Rodeo Association cowgirl, a resident of Carbondale, Colo., is the youngest of six siblings, all boys except her, and when she was little, she knew if she stuck close to mom and dad, her brothers couldn’t pick on her so much. “They couldn’t do anything to me if dad was around,” she remembered. Of course, being the only girl, she had a few tricks of her own. She could turn on the tears, if needed, and when she did, “I could get just about anything,” she said. But her mother didn’t fall for that trick. “My mom learned, and (the tears) don’t work with her anymore. She’s like, ‘yeah, right.’ She knows,” Bailey said.
The seventeen-year-old cowgirl competes in the barrel racing and goat tying and considers barrels her strength, because she loves working closely with her horse and has a strong connection with him.
Her barrel horse, Bill, is ten years old and was purchased as a ranch horse. When he came to the Griebel ranch, he was ugly, with warts all over his face, and skinny, too, but the warts are gone and he’s filled out. Bailey trained him for the barrels and he took to it easily. “He’s very, very smart,” she said. Bill still spooks at rocks, and isn’t a kid-friendly horse, but he’s solid. “You can do just about anything on him.”
Her goat tying horse is a seven-year-old named Little Foot, who has a small body and a long neck. He’s the opposite of Bill. “He’s very sweet and very calm. He doesn’t spook very much, and you can put just about anybody on him.” Both of her horses do ranch work, and Bailey feels that is an advantage, because “it keeps their minds sane and gives them something else to do than just rodeo.”
She is a senior at Bridges High School in Carbondale. She loves her physics class this year but doesn’t like math much. “I just cannot find a way to like math,” she said.
She works fifteen hours a week at the Fuel Hut, which is part of the coop in Carbondale. It’s not her favorite job but it keeps her busy, as people come in to pay for their fuel. “I’m finding out I’m not much of a people person,” she said. “I’d rather be doing something with animals all day.” She also helps out around the ranch, doing anything her dad asks of her: fixing fence, building fence, breaking colts, feeding, and even welding. She’s helping her dad weld on a trailer that will be made into a half-top.
She and her mom are partners on a little herd of mini-Highlanders, so each morning, she’s feed-ing her cattle, plus her mom’s Zebu steer, who is “yard art,” she jokes.
Bailey has to earn money to pay for fuel for her 1998 Dodge with a V10. She didn’t choose it for fuel efficiency, but for its “cool” factor. “Who knows why I chose that one but it goes through gas quick.”
After high school graduation, she will go to Colorado Mountain College in Carbondale to get her pre-requisites out of the way. Then she’d like to transfer to Texas A&M to work on a veterinary medicine degree.
Bailey also competes in the Rocky Mountain Ranch Roping, in the ranch roping and the wild cow race and is president of the Colorado Junior Cattlemen’s Association.
She has five brothers: Cody, who is 30, Nate, age 29, Ty who is 26, Lucas, age 25, and Wyatt, who is 24.
She is the daughter of Travis and Cody Griebel.
