$110K in 15 Rodeos: The Unbreakable Kassie Mowry

The $5.5 million jockey just keeps winning despite personal tragedy.
Kassie Mowry barrel racing Days of 47
Kassie Mowry and Jarvis winning Days of 47 2024 | Andersen/CBarB Photography

Kassie Mowry’s truck was pointed straight to Dublin, Texas, home on July 16, 2024.

Mowry had just finished competing at the Calgary Stampede and returned to the United States to discover an injury to her great mount, Emmitt, registered Famous Ladies Man.

“Emmitt got sore at Reno but I didn’t realize it until after Calgary,” Mowry noted. “It will take some further diagnostics to nail it all down but I wasn’t comfortable pushing him through for those Utah rodeos and Cheyenne.”

But fate gave her a little tap on the shoulder, call it an angel tap.

“I was right there in Salt Lake City and it was the day before the slack. I was entered and it was on my way home,” Mowry explained. 

The four-time National Finals Rodeo (NFR) qualifier was not afoot: she had Force the Goodbye, the six-year old phenom known around the barn as Jarvis on the trailer, too. Yes, that Jarvis, the one who won back-to-back go rounds at the 2023 NFR, running the two fastest times of the rodeo as a five-year old.

But Mowry’s plan had not included running Jarvis at the big outdoor rodeos.

“He’s done good at the buildings but hasn’t run in those big arenas. Emmitt loves those pens so that was my plan, to run him,” Mowry said. “I didn’t want to put that much pressure on him [Jarvis].”

Still, something convinced her to give Jarvis the chance in Salt Lake and the superstar delivered. She won the long round with a blistering 16.71-second effort on a full WPRA standard set, taking the win by more than two tenths of a second.

“I was just taking it one day at a time and we went out and won,” Mowry said, still surprised more than a week later. “I messaged my friend Danyelle [Campbell, fellow futurity trainer and NFR competitor] and she said, ‘it looks like you’re headed to Cheyenne.’”

Mowry pointed the truck east instead of south and ran Jarvis in the Qualifying Round at Cheyenne the next day, stopping the clock in 17.32 seconds for third in the round.

“So I said, I guess I’m going back to Ogden,” Mowry laughed a bit at the memory. Ogden was good—16.93 for first, Spanish Fork was good, 16.96 for seventh. Ironically, the only run she didn’t make was Nampa, the indoor Snake River Stampede which was originally intended to by Jarvis’ single outing of Pioneer Week due to a conflict with her advancements at Salt Lake and Cheyenne.

“I’m out there by myself and that would have been an overnight from Cheyenne so I was glad that worked the way it did,” she admitted. “A lot of things worked out in my favor this week.”

In Mowry’s mind, it was all thanks to Jarvis.

“That horse handles everything that’s thrown at him and knocks it out of the park,” Mowry noted. “And without needing a lot from me as a rider which as a trainer, I’m used to having to help these colts, especially when we transition them into the rodeos.”

“That’s what fascinates me about him . . . he does so much on his own and he’s just incredible.”

The week ended with a pair of wins in Salt Lake, the last giving Mowry her first Gold Medal at the Utah Days of ’47 after dominating the finals with a 16.75-second run, again almost two tenths better than Silver medalist Taycie Matthews.

“I think he knew how much I needed him,” Mowry noted of Jarvis for whom she gave high praise in her post-win interview, saying, “I’ve had some great horses in my career and this horse tops it all.”

That’s quite a compliment given Mowry’s record as a trainer and jockey. She is Equi-Stat’s All-Time Leading Rider of Barrel Horses earning more than $5.5 million in her storied career. She’s trained futurity, derby, rodeo, slot race and open divisional winners many of whom have gone on to success beyond her own riding.

“I’ve been so lucky and had so many amazing horses and incredible athletes,” she said. “I never thought Jarvis was the most athletic horse I’ve had but when you really need him, he’s at his very best. Like in San Antonio, when I had to get off of Will, he stepped up and won it.”

“I think that’s what so special about him, he brings it when it really counts. I’m just in awe of him,” she said. “I look forward to every ride I make on him. He loves his job and always shows up.”

Jarvis’ heroics haven’t just been needed to help Mowry work her way back to the NFR, although that is a mission for her more so this year than in year’s past.

This unicorn is delivering so much more than trifles like money or glory or prizes, even cool ones like Gold Medals. He’s providing just a bit of relief and distraction for a raw and hurting heart.

Mowry tragically and unexpectedly lost her fiancé Michael Boone on June 1. A team not only in life but also in their horse business, Boone was known for having a great eye for good horseflesh and spent his own fair share of time in the saddle as a trainer, making them a power couple to be reckoned with each and every new crop of futurity horses including gems like Force the Goodbye.

“Mike and I trained this horse together and he went over $1 million in earnings the week before Mike passed away,” Mowry noted with extreme emotion. “It was such a huge accomplishment for a six-year old who didn’t win any slot races, he did it the hard way.”

“I am so thankful Mike was still here to see him do that,” Mowry continued. 

Facing an unimaginable loss, Mowry has soldiered on through her competition schedule this summer with resilience, given a goal to distract her and focus her all at once.

“Last year when we were leaving Las Vegas, Mike said to me, ‘You have to do whatever it takes to get Jarvis back here next year. He deserves to be here.’”

With a thriving training business and futurity horses always lined up for the new season, rodeo has always been low on Mowry’s priority list and she noted that, while she’s been to three NFR’s going to less than 30 rodeos a year, that’s not an easy task.

“I told him, ‘it doesn’t always happen like this, the horses have just done good at the right places and made it happen. I might have to change up, go to the Northwest [in the late summer].’”

“He said, ‘then do it.’”

Mowry noted that like her, Boone wasn’t big on rodeoing full time but even this spring, he stayed persistent that Mowry do enough to give Jarvis another chance at the Thomas & Mack.

Boone’s sudden passing leaves a huge hole for Mowry but his thoughts on this particular horse have given her a stronger purpose, motivation to keep saddling up and fighting her way through each day in the terribly difficult grieving process.

“This is the thing that’s really driving me,” she said of the quest to fulfill Boone’s wish for Jarvis. “His family even told me they would come out to Vegas to watch. They live in Pennsylvania and don’t really get the rodeo thing but it meant a lot to me that they’d come support me.”

With her mission set, Mowry made Pioneer Week the new Cowgirl Christmas, banking more than the top Fourth of July winner Halyn Lide won just a couple weeks ago by more than $10,000.

“I’ve never done good over the Fourth, I don’t know why,” she laughed a bit. “The Utah ones are the ones I look forward to, I love those rodeos. They do an incredible job with their ground, they really go out of their way and they all do so much to give us a chance.”

“That’s why I entered those, they just go above and beyond.”

That above and beyond led Mowry and Jarvis to five sub-seventeen second times in the three Utah rodeos and an eye-popping figure earned during the week at just four rodeos: $43,370.

“It’s so crazy, I can’t even believe it,” Mowry marveled. “I almost went home and ended up having my biggest week rodeoing. Jarvis completely changed my week, he’s the one that made it happen.”

“It’s just crazy how things worked out.”

Though it won’t count toward WPRA World Standings, Mowry likely also secured the Pioneer Week Top Hand Award, given by the three Utah rodeos to the top money earning male and female athletes across their rodeos and worth another $15,000 in bonus money.

Mowry figures the money gets her close to safe for a fifth NFR trip but she’s still got one more hurdle to leap: WPRA rules require barrel racers to compete in at least 25 rodeos before being eligible to run at the NFR. The Utah run ran Mowry’s total to 15.

“I think I’m pretty close to $110,000 but I’ll have to go back out to get the last ten rodeos,” she noted, adding she’s home now and gearing up for her next major futurity competition, the Royal Crown in Rock Springs, Wyoming. “I had seven when I went to Reno but a lot of these were tournaments so you’re making a lot more runs than just 15 rodeos shows.”

Without enough rodeos in Texas left at season’s end to fulfill the requirement, Mowry is finding herself forced into unfamiliar territory and planing a three week run to the Northwest for the first time.

It’s a lot on her plate but Mowry admits that idle time has never been her strong suit and staying busy is her saving grace during this painful time.

“They’re taking care of me right now,” she said of her horses. “I’m blessed with such good horses and it’s an honor to have them and care for them. I just love them.”

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