By Tanya Randall
BarrelRacingReport.com
Lemoore, CA —The mother-daughter duo of Linda and Linzie Walker from Conway, Wash., took top honors at the Fourth Annual C-N Futurity, held Dec. 6-8 in Lemoore, Calif. Each year, a stallion auction funds the added money for the futurity and a stallion incentive. This year the futurity had at least $12,475 in added money.
Linda came from behind to surprise Linzie for the average win with RB Dyna Twist (“Dashy”). The victory was worth $1,531.
Linzie, on the other hand, put together two solid runs to take second in the average and $1,773 aboard Dancein For Cash (“Bella”).
“I came out of nowhere and bumped her,” laughed Linda. “She wasn’t very happy about that, but if she’s going to be beat by someone, she’d rather it be her mom. She won more money but I got a saddle, but she’ll probably end up with that!”
Making their finishes extra special was how much they enjoyed the hospitality of event producer Charlene Ornellas of C-N Quarter Horses.
“It was great,” she said. “Talk about good ground and great people. I feel like I have a whole new barrel racing family in California. Charlene and her whole family worked their tails off. They invited a whole bunch of us into their house to watch the NFR at night. We didn’t have to buy stalls. They let us set up panels out in their pasture. The fees were reasonable. We had a good time; it was really fun.”
Ironically, Linda was a little leery of entering the futurity. Her mare, unlike Linzie’s, wasn’t quite as solid and she hadn’t had many runs outside.
“I figured it was a 2D, maybe I’ll get lucky,” she said. “Friday night we went to a jackpot at Bakersfield. They had a little $100-added jackpot and she ran an 18.0. I thought ‘Oh, I might be able to squeak into the 1D.’ Linzie had a 17.5 on a beautiful run in a big, outdoor pen. I was like, ‘Wow, Linzie you’ve got this in the bag.’ She was feeling really confident, too.
“On Saturday in the futurity, I ran an 18.1. It was smooth, but not perfect. It was good enough for eighth place and I was happy. On Sunday, I don’t know where she got that run from, but she tightened up her corners and listened really good. She wrapped them, except for the third. She got a little bit deep on that one. I could not believe a 17.5 came out of that horse. How do you drop 6/10ths? We hadn’t cracked the 17s anywhere. I wasn’t expecting that until next summer. It was just unbelievable!”
After years away from training young horses while Linzie focused on WPRA rodeos and her youngest daughter Cheyenne played sports in high school, Linda decided she needed a young one to haul with her daughter Linzie, who had raised Bella, by Find Jo Cash out of one of their first futurity champions, Watch Flit Flight, by Dinner Flight. She bought Dashy, a 2009 daughter of A Firewater Twist RB out of Dyna Fame, by Dash Ta Fame, as a yearling from her breeder Fawn Kern of Rainbow Bar Ranch.
“You know one of those nights when you’re sitting at home bored and you start looking at horses on the Internet,” she laughed. “I asked my husband (Michael) to come take a look. I said, ‘What do you think? Should we call her up and go take a look?’ We drove down there and liked what we saw and bought her. She’s a little quirky. We found that out real quick. She’s been a challenge. It seems to be the quirky ones that do that best.
“We always say training horses has its peaks and valleys. I was in the valley for a long time with her. I finally handed her over to my husband. He’d work her through it and figure out if she was afraid, sore, ornery, stubborn… She’s been good now. There could be another valley coming up soon. We’ll see.”
The California C–N Futurity held a 4D warm-up barrel race on Sunday, Dec. 1, with 127 contestants and $300 added. The WCBRA race was sponsored by Nathan’s Diesel Service.
See complete results at westcoastbarrelracing.com
Charleen Ornellas aboard “Johnny Lightning,” won the C–N Derby Average. (Big Daddy Photography)
Chris Rose, riding “Ebar Doc Mace” won the Open average. (Big Daddy Photography)
