One of the top cowgirls in Mississippi is a Coast 8th-grader. And she’s piling up awards
Kinsley McBride is a first generation cowgirl.
McBride is heading into 8th-grade at West Harrison Middle School in August, but has a bit of business to attend to before then. She’ll be the only contender from the Lower Three counties representing the state of Mississippi in the national junior high finals rodeo in Iowa.
And she isn’t much like the rest of her team heading to Des Moines, either. She’s had to scratch and claw and work a little harder with fewer resources than most in her competitive field.
“I just have to work 10 times harder because I’m not home every day riding my horses,” McBride said.
Despite the disadvantages, McBride is now a three-time national qualifier and the No. 2 cowgirl in the state. She’s competed against strong-blooded, $20,000 horses with a self-trained, $600 horse named Houdini.
She has to travel to Wiggins and the Harrison County Fairgrounds to get her training in, unlike many across the state with horse arenas in their own backyards. She even goes to a real, brick-and-mortar school and maintain her grades while many of her competitors are home-schooled.
And she does her rodeo training following volleyball practice at WHMS. Even with the busy, time-constrained scheduled, McBride has won four saddles for earning event titles and “15 to 20” buckles for placing in the top five. McBride and her mom, Brooke Pollard, are beginning to lose count of the hardware. They just know they’re running out of space in the trophy case.
“Just knowing that Kinsley works so hard with her own horses, and put in the work, and that nothing was handed to her makes me extremely, extremely proud to watch her in the arena,” Pollard said.
Getting dirty
Pride isn’t the only thing Pollard feels watching her daughter go to work.
Over the years McBride has suffered a broken arm, a couple of concussions and a sprained ankle or two. One event she qualified for in this year’s nationals — goat tying — involves disembarking from a horse while the steed is at full gallop and wrangling a goat before tying its legs.
Ribbon roping is an event McBride has qualified for nationals in twice. It’s a tag-team competition that requires a rider to lasso a calf from a moving horse in order to retrieve a ribbon that is then returned to the gate.
And then there’s pole bending, where rider and horse must quickly weave through six poles both ways without knocking any down.
McBride nearly qualified in all three events this year, missing out on a pole bending spot by just two points. But even that she has competed at nationals in twice already.
“I’d like to qualify under more but just knowing that I’m going is a big achievement,” McBride said.
The bond McBride shares with her horses has proven to be a key factor in the success she’s enjoyed the last three seasons. She rode Houdini in her first two trips to nationals and is competing on a Palomino named Barbie this year.
McBride has a third horse she’s training for next year, Jet, that she calls her “secret weapon,” thanks to his professional bloodline.
“If your horses don’t like you, it’s downhill from there,” McBride said. “They have to trust you, and you have to trust them, and that’s what makes a good team.”
McBride hopes to one day compete at the college level and eventually in the professional National Finals Rodeo. Before then, though, she has one more NJHFR event before hitting the high school level.
She’ll be joined from South Mississippi this season by Joana Necaise from Perkinston. Necaise is a state champion in breakaway and a qualifier in goat tying.
The pair will be traveling as part of the 25-member Team Mississippi and compete in Iowa from June 23-29. The event will be streamed on The Cowboy Channel.
This story was originally published June 18, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
