Just a couple of weeks after winning a world championship, Wacey Trujillo was back on the road, headed to Farmington for more competitions.
Abiquiú’s Trujillo, an eighth-grade student at Los Alamos’ Topper Virtual Academy, took first place in goat tying at the June 19-25 National Junior High Finals Rodeo in Perry, Ga. She also competed in two other events at the championships, and finished eighth in the pairs ribbon roping event.
“I was pretty excited,” she said. “When I went back to see all my friends, everyone was jumping on me. It felt good.”
In Trujillo’s goat tying event, she races on a horse toward a goat and must dismount and tie its legs as quickly as possible. The fastest time through three performances is the winner.
The competitors were split randomly into groups for the competition. Trujillo’s first performance clocked in at 7.67 seconds, easily the fastest in her group. The second, at 6.89 seconds, was the fastest by any competitor all week.
“I was ready to go in, I guess,” Trujillo said. “(After the first round) I was feeling pretty good. I knew I had to go make another run.”
Entering the final round, with the top 18 in a group, Trujillo held a large lead over the crowd. As the last competitor to compete, she knew she needed a 9.44 in order to win. Her final time was 7.29 seconds.
She finished with the fastest time on all three “go-rounds” and posted three of the week’s top five times.
“I was kind of shocked when I found out that I did that good,” she said.
Overall, Team New Mexico finished second in the world at the world championships, behind only Texas. Wacey Trujillo’s ribbon roping partner, Reno Scribner from Edgewood, won first place in tie-down roping. And Hardy Osborn from Fort Sumner won the saddle bronc competition.
But neither Wacey nor her father, Tanner Trujillo could remember anyone from Northern New Mexico ever winning a world championship, or even finishing in the top four in 35 years.
Throughout the year, most competitions are at the state level. At the world championships, Trujillo and other local competitors could interact with junior high students from not just New Mexico, Texas or Louisiana but with students from Mexico or even Australia, though Trujillo said she mostly stayed with her New Mexico teammates — after competing against each other all year, they form deep bonds together.
“It’s truly a world championship,” Tanner Trujillo said.
Wacey Trujillo has been doing rodeo since she was four years old. As many do in the area, she comes from a rodeo family, working with her sister, Teagan, and cousins, all of whom practice together every evening. Her uncle, Patrick Trujillo, won fourth place in a 1987 national competition.
Last year, she finished 19th in goat tying at the championships.
For the past few years, Wacey Trujillo has worked with Stacey Martin, a college coach in Louisiana who specializes in goat tying — who Tanner said made the difference in the competition. They visit her for a weeklong boot camp in the summer, and Martin visits New Mexico. Martin will host a goat tying clinic in Abiquiú this October.
At the world championships, nearly a decade’s worth of training comes down to barely 20 seconds of action. The key to Wacey’s success is practicing those high-pressure, quick burst situations, over and over for years. They will play loud noises and music, simulate competitions with live standings. She said she will practice tying about 30 goats every day (10,000 over the course of a year), but only a couple of runs on the horse.
“We practice every single night,” Wacey Trujillo said.
And a lot of the competition, Wacey Trujillo said, comes down to luck of the draw. Before the competition, the competitors randomly draw the goat they will tie. She said her ideal goat runs to the left.
“It’s a big part of it,” she said. “If you draw a bad goat, it can take you out very easily. If you have a good goat, it can help you do some good.”
But, at least for a week or two, Trujillo could enjoy her championship (though without a reprieve from practicing).
“To bring the first world championship to Rio Arriba,” Wacey Trujillo said, “It feels pretty good.”
Other local athletes, including Escalante’s Monte Faulkner, will compete at the high school championships in Gillette, Wyo. starting July 17.