story by Lily Weinacht
Jordan Argyle of Riverton, Utah, is sitting 10th in the RMPRA barrel racing standings. The 28-year-old has competed in the association off and on for the last five years, and when her main horse got hurt and had to take eight months off, Jordan chose to forego pro rodeos for the year and compete closer to home once her mare recovered. “This year, the ground everywhere I’ve run has been really good, and I like it a lot,” says Jordan. “I really like Mount Pleasant—it’s a good arena for my horses—and I’ve won a couple of the Ogden winter series rodeos. Those are a little louder and my horse runs really good in a bigger crowd with lots of noise.”
A horse lover since she was a child, Jordan grew up riding the pony her dad bought for her, and participated in 4-H. She tried her hand at various disciplines from western pleasure to reining before finding her niche in rodeo when she was 19. “I got help from friends and kind of started on my own,” Jordan recalls. “In the beginning I had a lot of help from Jill Atkinson. She really helped me a lot with how to train the horses and school on them. When I very first started barrel racing, I didn’t have a horse trailer, and Amanda Nielsen would pick me up and take me around. Now I have a lot of other people I ride with often to keep learning.”
Barrel racing is Jordan’s sole event, and she loves seeing her horses progress. She ran her 5-year-old gelding, Billy, at several futurities this year, including the Dixie Classic Futurity and Salty Dash Futurity, and plans to rodeo on him next year. “When I did reining, you worked so hard all year and couldn’t really go that much, but we have rodeos all over. More than anything I like the adrenaline of it, and getting the colts and training them,” says Jordan. “I’m addicted to the game, and it’s not even just the barrel racing. I think it’s fun to take your family to the events. I have two little girls and they’re starting to like it. It’s a way of life now.”
Jordan’s 6-year-old daughter, Azlyn, has an older horse she’s started riding, and she barrel raced in the youth rodeo at Draper before the RMPRA rodeo this summer. Two-year-old Haven also loves the horses, and the girls enjoy traveling with their mom to the closer rodeos. Jordan’s husband, Dusty, also enjoys riding, and they go trail riding together. They own a home building business and Jordan is the real estate agent, which gives her the flexibility to rodeo. They also enjoy boating, staying in their cabin, or going on vacations together.
She plans to start rodeoing on the Wilderness Circuit again next season on her mare Tiny, the first barrel horse Jordan purchased. “She and Willie are half siblings, they have the same mother. Tiny has had everything under the sun go wrong and she just keeps coming back stronger. She’s 12, and she is so honest and she tries so hard. In the warm-up pen she bucks hard, so everyone knows her for her personality, but then she goes in the arena and she’s all business,” says Jordan. “I want to go a little harder and try to make the circuit finals. If Tiny stays healthy that’s my goal for next year. And I want to just keep training colts and go to futurities.”
