Lindsey Muggli was training other people’s barrel horses before she was old enough to drive across a state line and worked her tail off, so it’s no surprise we find her firmly planted inside the top 15 in the WPRA World Standings at the midway point in the season.
By the time she was in high school, customers were dropping colts off at the McLeod place and trusting her to put the foundation on them while her mom was off rodeoing.
She took one of those colts, a Blazin Jetolena gelding called JR Naughty Jett, to college in Stephenville and set the arena record at Lone Star with him. Back when 14.9s still won at Glen Rose on the old pattern, JR ran a 14.5.
She bought her own two‑year‑old at 19. She started that filly herself. She put a decade of amateur miles on her at the UPRA and LRCA finals, setting arena records there too, before she ever drew up a serious pro card.
This week, all of that quiet groundwork is showing on the leaderboard. Muggli sits No. 12 in the WPRA World Standings with $39,459.57 won across 33 runs as of June 2. And the horse carrying her is one almost no one else believed in.
Muggli—the former Lindsey McLeod, daughter of NFR qualifier Michele McLeod—was born in California and moved to Texas at age eight, but her spring 2026 ProRodeo strategy belongs to the West Coast.
Part of it came down to math. “The added money out here is about 30,000 more than Texas rodeos in May,” she said, “and there’s just a lot of girls at the Texas rodeos running for a few paychecks.”
The other selling point is the setup: big outdoor pens, no alleys, good ground, barrels off the fence. Those conditions mirror Reno, the Northwest swing, and the Fourth of July run. “I keep my horse in big pens with no alleys,” she said. “It better prepared me for the summer.”
In the Nick A Time
The mare under her is Movado, registered In the Nick A Time, a Blazin Jetolena daughter out of Rollin Nickie by As Good As Nick Gets, bred by Busby Quarter Horses. After what standout horse JR Naughty Jet had done for her, Muggli wanted one of her own bred the same way.
At 19, she called Andrea Busby. “She said, come to the ranch, we have a whole slew of them,” Muggli remembered. “This little two‑year‑old walked up to me in the pasture, the first one out of a whole group of colts, and I was like, ‘I want that one.’”
Muggli calls her Movado, because a name like “Rolex,” didn’t provide the individuality the mare deserved.
“Movado is a really expensive watch,” she said. “Everybody goes for ‘Rolex.’ I wanted something different.” She jokes that the mare was her and her husband’s first ring, their first investment together, bought before the actual engagement.
“There were multiple times he said this was the worst decision of our lives,” Lindsey said, laughing.
The Year She Tried to Sell Her
Movado strained a suspensory as a four‑year‑old. After six months off, Muggli took her on a planned six‑week rodeo trip in 2021, just before starting a nursing job. The mare quit turning the first barrel.
“I tried to give her away, I tried to sell her multiple times as a broodmare,” Muggli said. “The talent was insane, but it wasn’t working.”
Vet after vet found nothing. She booked a ride to ship the mare to her mom in Oregon to just walk her around barrels for a year.
Then her roper husband floated an idea she initially called the dumbest she’d ever heard: turn her the other way.
“I was at a jackpot and randomly tried it,” Muggli said, “and the rest is history. The saying ‘when nothing is going right, go left’ is true.” It took about a year to reseason her to the left. She’s been rock solid since.
Last Year’s Lesson
The year 2024 was equal parts validation and gut‑punch. Muggli won second in the first round at Casper and was rolling. Then came a freak accident at Estes Park. In an accident by the trailer, Movado cut her back foot down to the artery. She spent a week at Colorado State and was out of competition for eight more. Muggli still finished No. 41 in the world.
The eight‑week layoff rewrote her winter playbook. Normally she takes that part of the year off. Last winter she rolled: Denver, Rapid, Fort Worth, Odessa, Austin (off the replacement list after a turnout), because the mare had been resting and was ready. “The one thing I’ve learned about her is she’s not a horse that likes time off,” Muggli said. “That’s when she likes to hurt herself.”
What Makes Her a Rodeo Horse
You cannot tire her out. “She could be hauled from Fort Worth to Rapid City and back in the ice and snow for 16 hours and still try to buck me off in the warm‑up pen,” Muggli said. “I’m the first barrel racer warming up during the bulldogging, every time.”
Sassy is the word she uses. It’s also what makes the mare thrive when the rest of the warm‑up pen is dragging.
The Rest of the Trailer
Movado isn’t traveling alone. Muggli has a homegrown four‑year‑old mare she calls Etta, registered Slicketta, by Slick By Design, whom Muggli’s mother rode to the NFR, out of legendary mare and producer Rods Last Ladybug.
The dam, “Boomette,” was a horse Muggli rode in high school and still calls one of the grittiest mares she’s ever sat on. Jason Martin and Charlie Cole gave the family three embryos from that mare; Etta is the surviving filly on Muggli’s side. With only 11 lifetime runs, Etta has already cashed checks at three pro rodeos.
There’s also Dysco, a nine‑year‑old Famous Bugs gelding out of a Disco Jerry mare, bought last August from Allison Humphrey when Movado got hurt.
Life After Rodeo: The Part She Wants People to Hear
Ask Muggli what people are missing about her story and the answer isn’t about a horse. It’s about a career.
“I grew up a horse trainer’s daughter and watched my mom make the NFR several times,” she said. “But I also saw, at a very young age, that there’s a life after rodeo. People don’t see that.”
Muggli graduated nursing school and yes, still works as an ER nurse between rodeos. “I love chaos,” she said. The same restlessness that makes her good in a trauma bay is what lets her fly home mid‑season and pick up shifts if she’s losing her shirt on the road.
It’s the message she keeps coming back to, and the one she wants young barrel racers to hear loud.
“Don’t let anybody talk you out of going to school. Don’t let anybody talk you out of getting a career,” she said. “You can always put rodeo on hold. But after you make the NFR, after you win the world, when you’re 60, they don’t hand out free insurance and free retirement. Have your life planned to where you can take care of yourself, and then go follow your dreams.”
That philosophy is part of why she pushes new pros toward the amateur ranks first: the UPRA, the LRCA, the kind of
tough‑but‑close rodeos where she and Makenzie Mayes once traded arena records with their red mares. “You get to be home,” she said. “You get to test everything.”
It can help people, in her words, from losing their butt out West their first year.
What She Focuses On Now
Technically, the job on Movado in 2026 is simple: stay out of the way.
“She’s so dang solid,” Muggli said. After a stretch of hit barrels on the back side of the second this April, the work has been on squeezing through her turns and clearing that backside, and on backing the mare off in warm‑up without crushing her sass.
She still lays awake at night thinking about her, she said, and isn’t a crier except when it comes to this horse.
“Good horses are good,” Muggli said. “There was a reason nobody bought her. There was something I just couldn’t let go of.”