story by Siri Stevens
Sisters, Elle (16) and Bree (12) Werner, qualified in the pole bending for the World Junior Finals in Las Vegas, at the Dash for Dollars event in Ogden, Utah. The family made the 7.5 hour drive from their home in Montana City, Montana, to make it happen. “They wanted to qualify, so we did what we could to get them there,” said mom, Tara. Elle’s twin brother Ben had to stay home due to his golf schedule for their high school varsity golf team. Their dad, Ryan, was in 4H in his younger years and worked for an outfitter, guiding elk hunters on horses in the Scapegoat Wilderness. Ryan and Tara built and own Werner Plumbing and Excavating in Helena Montana.
Neither Ryan nor Tara were prepared for the high-strung horses that their daughters compete on. They both run their own horse for both barrels and poles. “I started 2-3 years ago, I started watching videos and learning from others,” said Elle, who started competing at the beginning of her freshman year and just finished her sophomore year. “We did the Montana High School Rodeo Association, local jackpots, and some NRA rodeos.” Elle wants to be an equine veterinarian, chiropractic, or anything health related, and maybe some farrier stuff in there. Her horse, Boone, is a “very spicy Dun – he is little but super-fast. He’s got a lot of fire in him .. he’s got an attitude, and we mesh.” He lets Elle go out and do her best and have fun doing it. “He’s a lot like me in a way.” They found Boone through a family friend – Tara Petersen, who got the girls into barrel racing. Petersen has two sons and always wanted a daughter that she could barrel race with, so she took Elle and Bree and said, ‘come on girls let’s ride’ and taught them the basics and lit the fire underneath them to ride.
In addition to rodeo, Bree runs track, 100 meter dash, 400 meter dash, 400 meter relay and long jump. She tries her hardest at 4’11” tall and can long jump 11’1”. She rides a sorrel named Cajun who came from Oregon. “He’s smooth and speedy.” She started a year after Elle and found riding was not the hardest thing to learn. Bree is going into seventh grade, electing to continue in public school.
Tara thinks her daughters picked up strength and balance for rodeo from their years in gymnastics. “I think what I saw in myself and have noticed in other people is, you have to work at what you want and it takes a ton of time. You have to focus on it and be dedicated to it in order to succeed” said Elle. She is a confident speaker thanks to her involvement in FCCLA. Riding a horse came pretty natural to Elle, the hardest thing for her to learn was knowing how to get the horses to do what you want them to do. “Getting them to listen – even though sometimes there is a misunderstanding of what is being asked. That was frustrating” said Elle. She spent a lot of time riding without stirrups to help get in time with the horse and keep balanced to sit square.
For Bree, it was communicating with the horse. “We succeeded and learned from our failures. I did gymnastics, so I have a lot of balance.” Bree wants to be a pediatric cardiologist surgeon. “When I was 6 I had to get heart surgery because I had Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT).” The procedure she underwent to end the episodes of heart racing was done at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “I remember not being able to do the things I normally did for a few months.” Today she is completely cured.
“We had a lot of faith in the Lord and we knew she was in His hands,” said Tara. “It was the end of her kindergarten year, and her heart would race at random times. She had a short circuit in her heart, so they performed an ablation on the short circuit and that was it.” Tara has learned how to ride in order to learn more about what the girls are doing and the terminology. “We’ve been riding with Janet Erickson (Ty Erickson’s mom) and she’s breaking it down to the second – it’s been amazing.”
