Emily McNeil, alongside Splash, raises the prize check she split with a barrel racer at the Hooey Junior Patriot Rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas 

Horses are powerful creatures, but Splash’s athleticism stands out from other equines. He is blazing fast and perfectly agile.

However, pure speed is just one of the reasons Splash has become a successful pole bending horse.

The other is his rider Emily McNeil, one of the country’s top teen pole bending riders. The Lamar student and her snowy steed proved their poles prowess at the Hooey Junior Patriot Rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas earlier this month when they set a personal best time of 19.6 seconds in the event’s final shootout and collected $50,000 in prize money.

“My horse doesn’t know what he did for me,” McNeil said. “When I was running out, I could see the clock above my head, and I just remember counting down the moments. When I went into the arena they had the arena lights, and before you couldn’t see the lights, and then the lights just kind of sparkled on me.”

All McNeil could do was have fun in the shootout because she did not believe winning was an option. She was competing against the best pole benders at the nation’s largest youth rodeo, and the time to beat was faster than her previous career best.

“I was warming up beside girls that I’ve watched in my house, that I’ve looked up to,” McNeil said. “It was just a really crazy moment because I’d never thought I would be there.”

More than 250 riders competed in the first round, but only 15 advanced to the finals. McNeil’s 20.053-second finish in the finals was slower than winner Grace Myers’ 19.754 finish, but second place was good enough for her to secure a spot in the shootout round. 

“It was pretty intimidating,” Chris McNeil, Emily’s father, said on the qualifying round. “She watches a lot of other people run that are very prominent in the sport. She gets there and they’re all there.”

Emily said she relaxed once she thought a victory in the shootout was unachievable. Then she exceeded her own expectations, set her best time ever, and won $50,000 to bring her total earnings at the event to $63,800. 

“You have 20 seconds to get it right,” Emily said. “You spend four hours every day trying to do something just to go somewhere for 20 seconds. It’s a lot of pressure in it, but I just like how much you have to get right and how perfect everything has to align. It just really makes you proud of yourself when you do good because it’s difficult.”

Emily’s family members know the challenges of the rodeo. Her father and mother, Misty McNeil, were both devoted to their rodeo events, as were their siblings and parents who participated in rodeos before them. 

Haleigh McNeil, Emily’s cousin and Splash’s owner, inspired Emily to compete when she became the 2017 National Little Britches Rodeo Association Senior Girls All-Around Champion soon after becoming Emily’s trainer. Even Splash seems devoted to the rodeo.

“He is a freak of nature,” Haleigh said. “I’ve been competing since I was 5. I have never seen a horse love a single event like he does. It’s not very common to find a horse that has his type of personality. He loves it as much as a person would love it.”

Emily started riding horses at age 4, and she began competing in pole bending, barrel racing and goat tying about four years later. She took two years off to play basketball, but Emily became successful when she returned to the rodeo.

Splash carried Emily to victory in the barrel racing and pole bending events at the State Games of Mississippi in 2022. She is currently one of the top-ranked pole bending competitors at the high school level in Mississippi, and her next goal is to win a state championship in June.

“It’s just like I remember playing basketball,” Emily said. “If every person that plays doesn’t catch the ball when they’re supposed to, it’s not going to work out like it needs to. You just really have to be in sync with your horse and make sure that every movement that you’re making is right.”

Emily’s dad compared pole bending to hitting a baseball or throwing a football while saying success in the event is determined by timing and repetition.

Her mother said riding horses is not like baseball, though. Baseball seasons eventually come to a close, but horses must be taken care of every day of the year.

“To take all that time and work and put it into a 19 second pole run that came off picture perfect, and to see your kid succeed at something they’ve worked so hard for, we’d spend it all again,” Misty said.