Double-barreled: NFR rider getting hang of victory laps

Brittany Pozzi-Pharr liked being honored at the South Point on Sunday for winning her first barrel racing go-round in a National Finals Rodeo.

That win ended her streak of 43 rides at the Thomas & Mack Center without taking a victory lap, and getting the big nightly paycheck and winner's go-round gold belt buckle.

"It was a good time," Pozzi-Pharr said, eagerly awaiting a return appearance.

The 24-year-old from Victoria, Texas, enjoyed the hoopla so much that she and her horse, Stitch, won Monday's fifth go-round before 16,686 to make it two in a row.

They completed the course in 13.8 seconds for the fastest time of the event, a mark they had set the previous night.

After missing the money on opening night, Pozzi-Pharr placed second and tied for second before her winning runs to boost her five-round total to $47,866. That has cut Lindsay Sears' 2008 lead to $41,500.

"There's still plenty of time. It's only halfway over," Pozzi-Pharr said. "It's going to come down to who makes the first mistake."

The difference would've been less, but Sears is also riding well and placed second Monday to win $10,006.

"I just keep to my game plan and ride my horse," Pozzi-Pharr said. "I don't go in there feeling I have to win the round because as soon as I do that, that's when I screw up. I ride on feel not my emotions."

Pozzi-Pharr and Stitch, a 10-year-old she has owned for four years, completed 23 NFR go-rounds without hitting a barrel until opening night.

In the Women's Professional Rodeo Association, which sanctions barrel racing in the NFR, a horse can hit or tip a barrel but if any of the three are knocked over it results in a five-second penalty.

"Tonight he kind of bounced off the first barrel and I thought it would slow him up. But he ended up being faster," Pozzi-Pharr said.

The diminutive rider is competing in her fifth NFR in six years and has won nearly $800,000.

In 2006 she started the Finals ranked first but finished second to Mary Burger by $2,567. She became the first rookie to qualify No. 1 in 2003 -- when she rode Stitch for three go-rounds -- but dropped to seventh in the world after the Finals.

Coming in as the top seed hasn't been productive, so it might have been a good omen when a foot problem kept Stitch off the road for about a month during the summer.

Pozzi-Pharr proclaimed the gelding to be "fit and sound." That has been apparent.

She wasn't the only money-winner in the family Monday night. Her husband, Doug Pharr, placed fourth in calf roping to win $7,031.

"We double-dipped 'em tonight," she joked.

But competing and traveling with her husband has benefits beyond money, though they are able to travel together along with their five horses most of the year.

"It makes it a lot nicer," she said.

"If I'm (traveling on the road) with him and not some other girl, I can tell him to shut up," she joked. "The other girls wouldn't listen and they'd get mad."

It certainly was all smiles as the rodeo couple rode to the South Point on Monday night, especially with a lot of extra jingle in their britches.

Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@ reviewjournal.com and (702) 383-0247.