Plenty of numbers favor veteran barrel racer

Lisa Lockhart isn’t a numbers person. But every once in a while, something forces the veteran barrel racer to contemplate the digits that define her career.

Ahead of the 2025 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, the media, fans and those close to her wanted to talk about what this qualification meant in a historical context. For the 19th straight year, the Oelrichs, S.D., native is in Las Vegas for pro rodeo’s season-culminating event. The mark ties fellow barrel racers Charmayne James and Sherry Cervi for the most NFR qualifications in the sport’s history.

Her husband, Grady, put it in a different perspective: the couple generally stays about 15 days at NFR each year. Over nearly two decades, they’ve spent roughly 285 days, or more than nine months, in Las Vegas.

“We should have bought a timeshare,” Lockhart said with a laugh.

There are other numbers that Lockhart spends little time thinking about. This year, she came into the NFR ranked sixth in the WPRA Barrel Racing world standings, with just shy of $167,500 earned during the regular season. If Lockhart can pocket $125,175 over the course of this 10-day event, she’ll become the first barrel racer in WPRA history to reach $4 million in career earnings.

All of that is exciting. And while Lockhart admittedly treats rodeo as a business, in which the budget’s bottom line needs to be in the black instead of the red, this trip to the NFR was less about that fiscal reality and more about the experience.

Early this year, she was unsure if qualification No. 19 would be possible, as her equine focus turned to different horses. The horse she rode the past four years was no longer available, so she began making Sasha, her 7-year-old sorrel mare, and Rosa, her 15-year-old buckskin mare, the primary mounts.

Lockhart had some success at RodeoHouston, qualifying for the finals, but largely spent the early portion of the schedule playing catch-up. She even went out to California in the spring, hoping the outdoor arenas would kick-start the season, as those venues fit her horses’ style better.

Midway through June, Lockhart was still well off the pace.

“I said all good things must come to an end. And, honestly, I felt like this was going to be that year,” Lockhart said. “I wasn’t giving up or not going, but I didn’t have the same mentality. I was like, ‘I know I can do this. I know I have the horsepower to do this.’ But I just kind of took a step back and said, ‘I’m just going to stay out here and do what I do because that’s what I do.’

“I didn’t go any harder and didn’t go any less, I just kind of kept it the same and went where I thought the horses would work. And here we are — I did not expect what transpired to that level.”

Everything shifted in mid-June, as Lockhart won the Buffalo (Minn.) Championship Rodeo and the Western Fest Stampede in Granite Falls, Minn., on the same weekend.

After some Fourth of July success, she captured the prestigious Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days for the second time, before finishing runner-up at the Pendleton (Ore.) Round-Up, Puyallup (Wash.) Rodeo, and the Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup.

The resurgence took her from barely inside the top 50 to a very familiar destination — the Thomas &Mack Center in December. And while Lockhart didn’t take the previous 18 trips lightly, she certainly isn’t taking this one for granted.

“I appreciate it now more than ever, because I know what it’s like being on the other side of it, when I was struggling and hitting barrels all winter long. I went to a lot of places and had a big goose egg beside my name,” Lockhart said. “Sports in general, but this industry in particular, is very humbling, because you don’t get paid unless you win. I think it snaps back into reality when we have these tough streaks and we don’t win, and that we appreciate the wins even more when we do get to win.”

There is one other big number still looming out there — zero. In a career brimming with accolades and accomplishments, Lockhart has found the quest for a gold buckle to be elusive. While she’s captured three NFR average titles, the seasonlong world championship continues to evade her.

She got a reminder of that fact at the Hondo Rodeo in November, when she was announced as a former world champion. She made sure to let organizers know that was incorrect — and promptly went on to win the event.

But just like every other number in her storied career, Lockhart isn’t letting it define her experience or her approach.

“I think sometimes chasing a gold buckle, unless it comes really easy, changes that dynamic, and I don’t want to change that,” Lockhart said. “If it would ever happen, it would be the coolest thing ever, but it’s just not something I ever set out to do.”