Lainie Whitmire

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Lainie Whitmire hails from northern Colorado’s Table Mountain Ranch. In an article from The Fence Post, Lainie relays some thoughts about Barrel Racing:

“You want them to be athletic, and have plenty of speed,” said Lainie Whitmire. “But it needs to be short speed, not necessarily a horse that is going to win on the track, but the horse that is first out of the gate. You need that quick burst of speed. The main thing that they have to have — and they don’t have to be running bred to have this — they have to have quick athleticism. An athletic horse is going to get you a long way. You want a horse that is quick, honest, and will go out there and work every time. A lot of it is just try. They have to try for you.”

And the relationship between horse and rider goes deep.

Whitmire summed it up when she said, “Our horses are an extension of our family. I hope that the people that watch rodeos realize that we love our horses. You spend a lot of time with your horses. They go everywhere with us — they are like family. It bothers me to some extent, when I see some of the animal rights groups saying things about rodeo or the way that we treat our animals. We love these animals. If anything happens to one of these horses, it’s like it happened to a member of our family.”