Bossier sisters show rodeo life teaches more than how to ride a horse

Eleven-year-old trick rider Katie English walks on the dirt path between the crowd sitting on the bleachers and the edge of the Pete Colvin Memorial Rodeo arena, dressed in a red, white and blue spandex suit. She has the confidence of someone who has done this before.

She stops to point at a poster on the gate, it is a photo of her standing on her horse. A little later she sits on that same horse moments before she is to perform. She giggles and admits she is a little nervous, but it does not stop her from running into the ring and over a horseshoe of fire.

Her mood when she comes out will depend on how well she has done. She has high expectations for herself and if she does not meet them, she can get upset.

Her mother Bobbiann Womack English knows this about her daughter. She is quick to say that Katie is somewhat of a ‘showboat’, the opposite of her other daughter, Landan English, who also appears in the rodeo as a barrel racer.

Eighteen-year-old Landan has a calmer disposition than Katie, but she wants to win just as much. It’s easy to see that Bobbiann has her hands full, but there is no one to blame but herself. Afterall, she is the reason they are all at the rodeo to start with.

It’s a life that Bobbiann knew she wanted ever since she was a child. “I always felt that I needed a horse, I never knew why I felt that way, but I did,” Bobbiann recalls. At an early age, she found she already knew how to ride, she already knew what to do, “There's something in me that said, ‘You need a horse to complete who you are’ so when I got a horse that showed to be true.”

In the years since, Bobbbiann has become a champion barrel racer, pole bender, all-around champion cowgirl and holds the record as a 4-time (1993-96) Louisiana HS Rodeo State Pole Bending Champion. In their house there is a curio cabinet filled with her 200+ buckles, the living room walls are decorated with the combination of saddles they have all won. The accomplishments seem endless.

Landon has her fair share of success, but it took her a while to get on board. When she was little, she describes her mother as ‘dragging’ her to barrel races and waiting endlessly for it to end. Around six years ago was when she went to National Little Britches Rodeo, “That's when I actually started caring about barrels and polls, and I would win, like every other rodeo and I would be excited about it.”

Katie needed no coxing, in fact, Bobbiann quickly learned that Katie was going to do things the way Katie wanted to do them. At the age of 3, Katie came riding up bareback on their pony. Bobbiann told her to put a saddle on, but Katie said no, “I attribute riding bareback on that pony to what she does now,” said Bobbiann.

What she ‘does now’ has gotten her cheers, looks of shock and all the attention worthy of those with a great talent. She learned so young and so fast that words like ‘prodigy’ circled around her name. At thirteen she is finding her place, but the future holds several possibilities.

Their hectic life could not be possible without the girl’s father and Bobiann’s husband, Geoffrey English, who was a bull rider in his younger years. “He has been everything,” said Bobbiann, “without him, we would not be able to do this.”

Together they know they are giving the girls more than the ability to ride horses. They are giving the girls a foundation that they can use for the rest of their lives, after all, this is not their first rodeo.

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Bossier city rodeo girls barrel racing trick riding sisters