Wishbone Grpahics

Emily Marshall loves life in the fast lane. She accelerates into high gear with the start of the clock, zips around tight turns, and walks the tightrope between control and lack of control. Like a race car driver, she thrives on the adrenaline rush. Several feet above the ground, she zooms in for the finish. She wields ultimate horsepower – as an award-winning barrel racer.

Laughing, Emily tells the story of the time a person actually thought she got inside of a barrel to race. While she knows the ins and outs of barrel racing, many people do not understand that just .003 of a second can determine the winner of a race and who takes home a cash prize or even a new truck.

“I like going fast. I used to ride English and jump (horses), but there was never a clear winner. In barrel racing, there is a clear winner,” Emily said.

Emily is a member of the National Barrel Horse Association (NBHA) Texas District 17, World Barrel Racing (WBR) and Better Barrel Races (BBR). She placed second with a 15.3 second run at a District 17 race, placed third in the youth division with a 15.9 second run at the NBHA Evergreen Super Show in Ardmore, Oklahoma, was a finalist at the Texas State Championship, and is qualified for the NBHA Youth World Championships and NBHA Open World Championships. In addition, she qualified for the Big Bucks incentive race at the WBR finals this year.

Plano countryside within the city

During an imagined picturesque Sunday drive, you might spy white picket fences and hear the familiar clip clop, clip clop of horseshoes sauntering down the road. It makes the perfect daydream for most Plano residents, but it seems a bit surreal when you actually enter that setting within the bustling city you call home. Emily’s three horses, Lily, Deuce and Star, reside in Plano at her grandparent’s residence set in a luscious green landscape with tall trees and a stable, with plenty of room to practice barrel racing.

According to Emily’s grandmother, Nel Byrd, at one point her neighborhood was full of horses.

“My husband and I both grew up in the country, and we like to have space around us. When we moved here, Emily had two horses and just lived down the street. The people across the street have a horse, and another woman breeds her horse. It is sort of a unique area where people can have animals,” Nel said.

Emily is a student at Collin County Community College District and is dually enrolled in Texas A&M Commerce. She takes classes Tuesdays and Thursdays and spends the rest of her week with horses. Ultimately, she wants to hit the rodeo circuit and eventually train, sell and breed horses. Emily has been riding horses since she was 5 years old, but her barrel racing career began in 2005 with training from Brenda Paradis.

Becoming one with your horse

Paradis is the owner of Diamond B Equestrian Center in Royce City, home of B-One Training. She offers colt starting, training and lessons.

“Some riders prefer the slower competitions where everything is choreographed and controlled and the picture of perfection as they go down the rail. The other extreme is barrel racing; as soon as you hit the starting line, everything is quick. Some riders are not comfortable with the speed and being slightly out of control at times,” Paradis said.

According to Paradis, barrel racers cross a timeline with an electric eye that starts the clock the moment you cross it. The horses run around three barrels in a cloverleaf pattern. Like humans, horses can be left- or right-handed and that dictates whether they start with the left or right barrel. Emily’s horse, Deuce, is left-handed.

Paradis says barrel racers must embody many qualities including determination, the ability to take a risk, patience, and self-control. Perhaps, the most important and interesting part of barrel racing is that the sport demands that a successful rider becomes one with the horse.

“When you can sit up in the middle of the horse while the horse is in constant motion, you are one with that horse and that horse is giving you every bit of his body. When you add the speed and adrenaline, it can be very addicting,” Paradis said.

According to Paradis, there is a great distinction between a rider and a horse person. Horse people work on becoming one with horses. They listen to and watch the horses, because the horses show them the challenges that must be overcome.

“Emily is becoming more and more of a horse person and not just a rider. She is a very balanced rider, and most of the time she is not getting in the horse’s way. It is not always what happens that determines the outcome, it is how you handle it,” Paradis said.

According to Paradis, good horse people know when their horses are tired or sore, and they know how long they should practice on any given day before a race. They also know when to push the horse and when to back off.

“Another quality that is important to me is that they need to be able to ‘cowgirl up,’ to be tough. If you have a flat tire and it is raining and you are late to a race, you have to be able to mentally get yourself together and prepare your horse and be able to focus and think positive and reward your horse for what he did right and not just focus on what went wrong,” Paradis said.

Like Emily, Paradis believes that Deuce has a lot of promise as a barrel racing horse.

“In my opinion Deuce has the potential to be the very best. He has the physical ability and mental capacity for barrel racing. If Emily slows down and does her homework with him, he will give her the world,” Paradis said.

It wasn’t love at first site for Emily and Deuce, aka Trix Wild Freckles. When Lily began to have problems with her leg, Emily’s family spent four months looking for a new horse. Brenda recommended Deuce.

“He was ugly and his feet were all blown out, but I liked him when I got on him,” Emily said. It may seem odd to those who are not familiar with horse racing that a young woman would be the owner of three horses instead of concentrating all of her time and effort on one horse, but barrel racing is hard on horses. According to the Marshalls, most people in the sport own at least two horses, and many own and race five horses because one rider can ride different horses in the same race.

Deuce may eventually be the better barrel racing horse, but Emily says 6-year-old Lily, aka Lily Le Phew, is still the boss, and she lets 6-year-old Deuce and 3-year-old Star know it. Emily’s horses are each adorned in a different color: Lily in hot pink, Star in lime green, and Deuce in blue. Emily has shirts to match each of the horses.

Barrel Racing – a family affair

Emily’s barrel racing has changed the way her family members live their lives. Emily and her mother, Angela, visit Emily’s grandparents and take care of the horses every evening. Emily’s grandfather, Leon Byrd, feeds the horses and mucks the stables in the mornings and when his granddaughter cannot make the trip.

“I grew up in the country and had a horse until I was 15 and learned about cars,” Leon said laughing.

“Emily does all of the grooming. I enjoy the horses, and I get to see more of Emily. There are all of these things about barrel racing we didn’t know. I have been painting for 30 years and I am still learning, and it is the same with horses,” Nel said.

Emily’s father, Mike, says while his father grew up with horses, he was raised as a city boy in Plano. He enjoys watching his daughter race but does not plan to race horses himself.

“I cannot imagine going that fast on something that big. The horses get us outdoors. I don’t see quite as much TV as I used to, and that is good,” Mike said.

Angela says taking care of the horses is therapeutic. She knows she is going to be there awhile, so she relaxes. Like her husband, she does not plan to follow in her daughter’s footsteps, although the horses might not agree. One time, Angela was seated on a saddled Deuce watching Emily race one of the other horses, and Deuce thought it was his turn and took off.

“I looked for Mike to save me, and he had his video camera out,” Angela said laughing.

“The horses are good for Emily and me. Typically most mothers don’t get to see their 18-year-old daughters as much as I do.”

Emily’s brother, Travis, cannot understand why his sister keeps choosing horses that are brown, but Emily patiently points out that Lily is liver chestnut, Star is a bay, and Deuce is sorrel.

Angela says she never realized the popularity and demands of barrel racing. Recently, Emily was one of 375 entrants in a barrel race. Mother and daughter often sleep with the horses in a three-horse trailer on their three-day weekend excursions to the races. From the exterior, the trailer looks quite normal, but the interior looks like a sleek camper and is equipped with air conditioning, a bed, a refrigerator, a microwave and a sink.

The expense and time commitment are great with barrel racing, according to Angela. A school teacher, she now job shares so that she can spend more time with Emily and the horses.

“It just snowballed. All we were doing was buying a pretty horse. We kept thinking the horse fascination would go away. The horses need new shoes every six weeks, which costs $90 per horse, and we have them eating the top-of-the-line food. But whether Emily reaches her goal or not, she will have gained enough knowledge and skill to turn this into a profitable business,” Angela said.

For Emily, winning the race is fun, but she gains the most satisfaction when the horses run the races the way she asks them to.

“Whenever one does well against top horses, it is really cool because I know I have done it,” Emily said.

Years ago, Emily says she watched barrel racers at the Mesquite Rodeo.

“I thought those girls were just sitting up there. I thought I can do that. The really good people make it look easy,” Emily said. “Emily makes it look easy,” Angela concluded.

Heather Darrow is a Plano-based freelance writer and regular contributor to Plano Profile.