Barrel racers add flash to horse show

By Amy Hunter
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: May 26, 2008

BY AMY HUNTER
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
ABINGDON, Va. – Leslie Dickenson’s horse sunk his head toward the ground on Sunday as he dozed in the late afternoon sun.
The quarter horse heaved a full-body sigh and swished a fly with his tail before closing his liquid black eyes.
Five minutes earlier, the 6-year-old bay was whipping his massive body around barrels in a competition to see which horse could maneuver the obstacles fastest. “There are three barrels out there and you ride a cloverleaf around them,” said Gordon Brookshire, who trains Dickenson and her horse. “The fastest horse wins.”
Pines Double Joe, or Jo Jo, as he is known around the barn, was one of several hundred entries at the Blue Ridge American Quarter Horse Association show at the fairgrounds in Washington County.
The Memorial Day weekend competition spans three days and offers a variety of classes that riders can chose from to compete. Other popular classes include reining, Western pleasure and halter competitions. Not to mention barrel racing – in which Brookshire and Jo Jo placed third.
“First place was about 18 seconds,” Brookshire said to a fellow competitor in the final class of the day.
Brookshire explained that winners accumulate points over the year. The riders with the most points qualify to compete in the annual World’s Horse Show in Oklahoma, he said.
After Sunday, Brookshire had a total of 3.5 points, “and I still got one more day to go,” he said.
The fairgrounds were settling around 3 p.m. when the long day was coming to an end. And while Dickenson said the morning was busier, the show still was quieter than usual.
“Horse shows are smaller right now on account of the fuel prices,” she said. Brookshire and Dickenson traveled from Bluff City, Tenn., to compete in the show; they hit a couple of shows each month in the summer – sometimes traveling more than 200 miles one way, they said.
Despite stifling diesel prices, Brookshire said, he and the riders from his barn, Hemlock Hills Quarter Horses, plan to keep up their schedule this show season.
“It’s a stress reliever,” Dickenson said. “I like it because you can always improve and because you make so many friends.”
Dickenson patted her sleepy mount on the forehead at the end of the day and loosened the cinch of his saddle. Jo Jo can be fast in the ring, but she likes him because of his attitude outside it.
“He’s laid back and he’s willing to learn. And he’s always been very, very good on the ground,” she said
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