story by Ruth Nicolaus
Jordan Ayers is in her first year of rodeo, and “I’m in love with it,” she declares.
The fourteen year old cowgirl, a member of the Utah Junior High School Rodeo Association, caught “horse fever” when she was a little girl, and never got over it.
When she was younger, the family lived in Park City and didn’t have a horse, even though Jordan wanted one badly. Her parents, tired of hearing her beg for one, assumed she’d grow out of the “horse-crazy” phase. But she didn’t. When she turned six, they told her, “we won’t get you a horse, but we’ll get you riding lessons.” On her sixth birthday, she held them to their promise.
Now, eight years later, she competes in the pole bending and barrel racing, and next year, in high school rodeo, hopes to add breakaway, goat tying, and team roping.
Her mount is an eleven-year-old sorrel gelding named Reno who may not be much of a speed horse, but he gives his all. A former PRCA pickup horse who worked the Wrangler National Finals, Reno “gives me all his try and I appreciate it,” Jordan said. “When I first got him, to try him, he listened to me, and took care of me, and my dad was like, ‘We are getting that horse.’ He listens well and we just click.”
When she grows up, she’d like to be a veterinarian or a horse trainer. She is an eighth grade student at South Summit Middle School in Kamas.
She has an older brother, Jackson, who is sixteen. She is the daughter of Jim and Cindy Ayers.