Emily Beisel won the 2026 Reno Rodeo barrel racing average aboard Teasin Dat Guy, “Chewy.”
The No. 3-ranked barrel racer in the world clocked 50.74 seconds on three runs, capped by a 16.83-second finals lap worth $7,844. But the win was the payoff of a season-long strategy: putting the right horse in the right pen. For Beisel, the paycheck was almost beside the point. This one was Chewy’s.
“I was on a mission to get this win for Chewy,” Beisel said. “I’m just so grateful—what an incredible animal. Thank you, Reno; she obviously loves it here.”
Carlee Otero won the final round in 16.81 and finished reserve at 50.81. Winning it on the biggest night, in a round where the best in the world all showed up, made it sweeter for Beisel.
“It was not a single knocked barrel—everybody delivered,” Beisel said. “For her to do it at Reno, on the final day, the final night, when everybody was tuned in—that just was huge. It got to my heart, because that mare just tries. She tries so hard.”
A win she wanted for the horse
Ask Beisel what makes Chewy special and she goes straight to the mare’s strong suit.
“She is the queen of consistency,” Beisel said. “She gives you a shot every time you go down the alley, regardless of the circumstance.”
That’s a trait that shines at a rodeo like Reno. As the sport has evolved and more rodeos adopt tournament-style formats built around the single fastest run on the final day, a multi-round setup like Reno’s rewards exactly what Chewy does best, and Beisel plays to it.
The venue has been a no-brainer on Chewy’s schedule since their first weeks together as a team, and Beisel is thoughtful about matching the mare to the pens that suit her. “Reno’s format (two full rounds, with the top 12 coming back to the aggregate, and an average paid out on three runs after the finals) is really conducive to her consistency,” she said. “She lets her talent shine all the way through, from the first round to the last.”
More than anything, Beisel wanted the win because she believes in the horse. “She’s 10 years old with over $700,000 in lifetime earnings,” she said. “I wanted people to know that she is spectacular and she’s worthy of this win—because she is. I was ready for it to be Chewy’s turn.”
Getting there meant beating the best, and Beisel is the first to salute the company. Chewy has come up just short at Reno before, and she does it in elite fields. “Being second (behind DM Sissy Hayday) the last two years is such an honor,” Beisel said. “In the era of competitors like Kassie Mowry and that team, it’s really hard to win. Nobody in the field will hand it over—and that’s what makes it mean so much.”
The run that shouldn’t have worked
Chewy’s first-round run in slack nearly came undone at the second barrel. Beisel had sent the mare hard out of the back gate in the slack and got a touch too much momentum into the first.
“She had to float the backside of the first to keep from catching it, so she was running inside-out a little on the way to the second,” Beisel said. “That scared the tar out of me. She wasn’t hitting it—she didn’t shoulder it—she was just out of position where we ended up.”
The barrel started to tip. “I just kept my hand down and kept trusting it, and it felt like slow motion. It just kept falling, and I knew I couldn’t reach it,” she said. “I’m not even joking you—I stuck my foot out, felt it hit my foot, and I lifted. The gravity gods were on my side. When that thing stood back up, I was like, ‘You got a gift. You better make the most of this.’”
- PROFile: The Emily Beisel Story
- Teasin Dat Guy is Changin’ Emily Beisel’s 2024 Season
- $30,000 Leg Lift: Emily Beisel and Liza Top Round 6 of NFR Barrel Racing
She knew exactly how lucky she’d gotten. “I got away with something—that should not have happened,” Beisel laughed. “Sometimes those are the days you go buy a lottery ticket. After that, I was like, we get to have fun now.”
It fits everything she believes about the mare. “Her personality radiates confidence. I never have to worry on Chewy—she’s always got us,” Beisel said. “As long as I don’t totally screw up, she’ll take care of the rest.”
The dream horse
Teasin Dat Guy, a daughter of Frenchmans Guy bred by Katie Lindahl, was trained and campaigned by Molly Otto, who took her to the 2021 NFR as a 5-year-old, before 4M Equine Ranch, owned by Darrell and Felicity Martin, handed the reins to Beisel in spring 2024. Beisel had admired the mare for years before she ever swung a leg over her.
“Chewy was my dream horse,” Beisel said. “She is, to me, the most universal rodeo horse I’ve ever rode. It doesn’t matter if the ground is hard or deep—she didn’t like Calgary and she doesn’t like Cheyenne. But that’s a pretty short list.”
Since joining the string, Chewy has won St. Paul and Deadwood for Beisel and been a fixture at the rodeos that suit her. And she’s become something more than a job.
“When you walk in the barn, it’s a better place because she’s there,” Beisel said. “She’s not just an animal. She’s family to us.”
The partnership with 4M runs on that same trust, and it starts with the calendar: when Beisel enters, Chewy’s rodeos come first, and she fills in the rest of her string around them. “They trust me with Chewy—they trust that I’m going to put her in the right spots and take good care of her,” Beisel said. “They handed me the reins to an incredible animal, and I have to manage her appropriately.”
Strategy heading into Cowboy Christmas
The Reno win comes just as Beisel enters the most logistically brutal stretch of the rodeo season, and this year the math is tighter than ever. With an early Calgary Stampede start, her window over the Fourth of July was squeezed down to almost nothing.
“This year I only have three days to do the Fourth of July, and that includes a private plane. I’ve never done that before, but I’ve got to be at Calgary by 8 a.m. July 3.”
She skipped Ponoka to save the miles and is prioritizing tour rodeos. “I’m going to try to do four—three tour rodeos and one that’s close,” she said. A late trade at Reno helped set it up: “Very thankful to have gotten that trade. It was going to be a lot of 14 extra hours on her, and I try to avoid backtracking.”
Managing a barn full of A-list horses (Chewy, Chongo, Trigger and the rest) is a job Beisel says experience has made easier, even as the weather threatens to rewrite her plans with rain soaking the road to St. Paul and Canada.
“I have exhausted myself trying to capitalize so much that after Calgary I’m worthless,” she admitted. “I’ve had to make smarter decisions. Now that I’ve got the veteran horses plus a couple young superstars acting like seasoned veterans, I’m counting on them. If I do my job and get them to the right places, they will show up for me.”
Her rule for the chaos ahead is simple. “You can plan it all you want, and then get somewhere and still have the ‘wrong’ horse on the trailer,” she said. “You just have to make a plan and stick with it. Trust your gut—you did that for a reason. Dance with the one that brought you.”
And she knows to savor a moment when it finally lands. “When that barrel stood back up, I knew—it’s my turn,” Beisel said. “When it’s not your turn, you can’t do anything to force it. But when it is, you can’t do anything to stop it. That’s something I’ve learned over a lot of years of rodeoing.”
At Reno, it was definitely Chewy’s turn in 2026.