OKLAHOMA CITY — For a man functioning on so little sleep, Trevor Dare sure had a lot of energy.

The 27-year-old horse trainer from Purcell said he’d been up since 3 a.m. preparing his 3-year-old gelding, Xtra Hollywood Step, for their reining competition. By 7 a.m., he had rushed to his hotel room in Oklahoma City for a quick shower and change, and was back at the State Fairgrounds.

By 10 a.m., the duo had finished a choreographed routine filled with fast spins, slow spins, lead changes and a horse’s version of running slide stops that resemble a baseball player’s slide.

“A lot of people compare it to figure skating, but like on a horse,” Dare said of the sport, called reining. “We have a lot of different maneuvers we have to complete.”

By late morning Wednesday, Xtra Hollywood Step stood with its head slightly drooped. The dark brown horse, with a star on its forehead and a white strip running the length of its face, looked ready for a nice, long nap.

Dare was pumped. Other competitors swung by his area at the fairgrounds to congratulate him on the run.

“When you walk back over there, they’ve usually watched you on the big screen and either congratulated you or told you how bad they feel for you if it wasn’t good,” he said.

Everyone who competes in reining, he added, is part of a big family.

“We all know how hard it is and the hours we put in preparing for this,” he said.

Nearly 1,000 reiners entered the contest at the State Fairgrounds. It was the 50th annual competition and the National Reining Horse Association’s top annual event. Competitors hoped to take home some of more than $750,000 in prize money.

The number of reiners are relatively few; the association based in Oklahoma City counts more than 15,000 worldwide.

But, nationally and internationally, interest in their sport is growing.

Marie Klimova, a marketing intern with the association who lives in Gainesville, Texas, said people are discovering that it doesn’t take as long to train horses for reining as it does other events. Many horses that compete in jumping, for example, are 10 years old.

The temperament of reining horses makes them easier to handle, as well, said Klimova, who also competes as an amateur, though she wasn’t entered in this week’s championship.

“I’m not saying it’s an easy sport,” she said. “It’s pretty accessible to people. You don’t need expensive gear. You pretty much need a horse and a saddle.”

At first glance, the sport looks easy. How hard could it be to get a horse to turn in a circle?

Most horses hate turning in circles, Dare said.

Yearlings that frolic in pastures will slide, lope and change leads. Never do they spend their days turning in circles, he said.

It takes training and patience to make them comfortable, he said.

Dare, whose parents are lifelong horse enthusiasts, rode horses before he could walk. He was competing by age four.

Still, newcomers sometimes best him. Dare takes such losses good-naturedly though admits it’s not as fun to lose.

Dare spends his days working as a trainer for Xtra Quarter Horses in Purcell. At any one time, the breeding and training facility owns nearly 300 horses, which it sells to reiners across the world.

It continues to train horses that aren’t sold and enters them in competitions until a buyer comes along. Xtra Hollywood Step is one such horse.

Competition horses are treated like professional athletes. They’re held to an exercise regimen and kept to a strict diet.

Many of the biggest reining ranches are in southern Oklahoma and northern Texas, he said, because the three biggest reining events are held in those states.

But the market for the horses — and interest in the sport — spans the globe.

While Xtra Hollywood Step was ready to relax, Dare admitted that he was sweating it out, not sure if his score would be good enough.

Organizers, much like coaches making a roster, wouldn’t post a paper list of who’d made the latest cuts until later that afternoon.

When word finally came, Dare and Xtra Hollywood learned that they would go on to compete in the next round.

Dare admitted that there’s always a little bit of relief when a competition is finally over.

He’ll go home and sleep for an entire day, before he returns to training and does it all again.

“There’s always another horse show,” he said. “For us the long hours and staying up all night isn’t really that big of a deal because we’re getting to do our hobby as a profession.

“A lot of us say that it would be terrible to have to wake up and go to work every day,” he said, “because we don’t really consider this going to work.”

The reining championships continue at the State Fairgrounds through Saturday, Dec.5.

Janelle Stecklein covers the Oklahoma Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jstecklein@cnhi.com.