Tayla Moeykens won the barrel racing title at Cheyenne Frontier Days on July 26, riding the gelding she calls Yeti to the biggest win of her career at the Daddy of ’em All.
It was the third summer she has brought KN Fames Best Yet back to Cheyenne, and the year the climb finally paid off. They were fifth the first time, second last year, and champions in their third.
Moeykens, of Three Forks, Montana, ran the new ProRodeo tournament bracket at Cheyenne the way she has run everything this summer, one clean trip at a time. She won her first-round performance on July 18, came back through the semifinals, and in Sunday’s 12-horse final laid down a 17.41 that held off Jana Bean by three-hundredths of a second. Full CFD results are here.
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The finals paid $12,148, and her Cheyenne week was worth about $16,266, part of an $18,175 run that also included a $1,909 win at the Central Montana Fair in Lewistown. That moved Moeykens to seventh in the WPRA’s official July 29 standings, the newest rider over $100,000.
The win did not sink in right away. Cheyenne’s crew grabbed her at the end of the arena before she could catch her breath to hold for a victory lap, and Moeykens waved them off. “I was like, hold on, hold on, Lisa still has to run,” she recalled, knowing reigning champions Lisa Lockhart and Rosas Cantina CC could still bump her. “It’s not over yet.” But after Lockhart ran, Moeyken’s name still hung at No. 1 on the board.
KN Fames Best Yet (Dash Ta Fame x KN Fabulous N Khaki x Frenchmans Fabulous) is an 8-year-old gelding, and Cheyenne’s long setup, with its third barrel in the middle of the pen, was never supposed to suit him. Moeykens said as much the first year she pointed him at it. “I was like, typically this isn’t his setup,” she recalled. “And that first run, he just went in there and did his job. And I was like, wow, okay.”
He has answered every year since, climbing from fifth to second to the win.
The Cheyenne ground changed by the round, and Moeykens rode it by staying out of Yeti’s way.
She sat quiet and focused throughout her runs to combat the shifting conditions.
“He definitely kicked on the afterburners and got it done for me, even with that rider error,” she said of passing her first barrel in the middle round. She managed to make it through in the fourth position on a day where multiple horses struggled in the dirt.
“I trust my horses, I trust in our training, I know they’re going to stand on their feet if I just stay out of their way.” Moeykens said of her strategy. “I helped him in little areas, but he put himself where he needed to be.”
The strategy behind the summer is the strategy behind the whole program: the horses come first. Moeykens and her mother, Deena Moeykens, who pro rodeoed herself, map their rodeos weeks out by what each horse likes, and they ice, red-light and massage their way down the road.
Two palominos Moeykens ran as a youth, and her mother rodeoed before her, are 25 and 26 and still loping in the field. Her college finals standout ran far into her teens, too.
“The end goal is to have them retire happy, healthy, and just go be a horse in the field and run on treats,” she said. “The happier I can keep them, the happier I am. And I really think that helps the consistency, too.”
Moeykens credits her mother, accomplished barrel racer Deena Moeykens for a program that blends old-school horsemanship with the new gadgets. “She’s not a bandwagoner, so something has to be proven over time,” Moeykens said. “We use those tried and true things that help over a long period of time.”
If the program is her mother’s, the riding is increasingly her own. “Some of the things mom’s tried to teach me over the years, I feel like I’m starting to understand this year,” Moeykens said. “I think he’s been better because I’ve been better.” Her mother, she said, still holds the corners together, but Moeykens abilities keep growing.
For all the winning, Yeti is, by his rider’s account, a bit of a feral boy. He hates baths and rolls in the field the minute he gets home. In the arena he is all business until the run is over. “If you watch that video, he’s all serious until I pet him,” she said of the finals run in Cheyenne. “And then he’s like, oh, I did so good.”
While Yeti stayed proud outside of the arena after his run, Moeykens’victory lap was almost as exciting as her run. Asked whether she wanted to lope or go fast, Moeykens did not hesitate. “Well, I want to go fast, of course,” she said. The pickup rider met her at the end and summed it up: “You really sent it.”
The Cheyenne title also sharpens Moeykens’ fall: she sits fourth in the WPRA Playoff Series points race, which lines up the richest added-money rodeos still to come. Yeti heads to Idaho Falls, Preston and Heber City next; Lizard, her JM PocketsDoubleDash, runs Great Falls and West Yellowstone.
Through all of it, Moeykens keeps pointing at everyone but herself. “
It helps me, my sponsors, my friends, my family, my parents. We could not get down the road without any of them,” she said. “All the support I’ve seen after this has been kind of overwhelming. It’s so cool, and it’s so heartwarming and humbling to see.”