The Summer Olympics may have come to a conclusion but for Hailey Saffert of Rice Lake, her sport’s version of the Olympics is going on this week.
Saffert, a recent high school graduate, and daughter of Jason and Emily Saffert, will be competing in Youth Cow Horse Challenge during The Run for a Million, the “premier event for western equine sports,” which began in Las Vegas on Monday and runs through Saturday.
Hailey qualified for the event by reaching the finals of the National Reined Cow Horse Association World’s Greatest Youth Horseman in Fort Worth, Texas, in February. She is just one of 11 riders who will compete in the Youth Cow Horse Challenge.
“I’m super excited and grateful to go,” Hailey said. “We give the horses the weekend off but we ride almost every single day. We go to all these big shows and little shows trying to get ready for these type of events.
“I’ve done the World’s Greatest before but there’s been one little thing that kept me out by a few points. To finally make it is huge.”
The Run for a Million’s biggest event will have 16 riders competing in the $1 million prize in the reining competition, but there is also cow horse and cutting challenges and youth reining and cow horse, among other competitions during the week-long event.
“It’s the top 10 cutting horses in the world, top 10 reiners in the world, top 10 cow horse in the world, and they have just now added youth in the last two years,” Emily said.
The Run for a Million was started in 2019 by Taylor Sheridan, the co-creator of the hit TV show “Yellowstone.” Sheridan has also produced “The Last Cowboy,” which documents the riders competing in The Run for a Million.
Horse shows are a family event for the Safferts and Hailey started competing in the green classes for young kids by around age 6. The Safferts work with Lance Scheffel of LRS Performance of Rice Lake for training of their horses, and it’s taken countless hours riding to work on the craft.
“Her dad and I are super proud of her,” Emily said. “This kid has put in a lot of hours and work with Lance. Lance has given them millions of riding lessons, all of the time together is a huge accomplishment when you’re on a 1,200-pound animal.”
For the World’s Greatest Youth Horseman event earlier this year, competitors had to perform cutting, a reigning pattern, cow horse and steer stopping. In cutting or herd work, one horse and rider enter a group of cattle, separate a single animal, and then prevent it from returning to the herd. The horse should step into the herd willingly and quietly, sorting out one cow without disturbing the rest.
Rein work, the “equestrian version of figure skating,” consists of horse and rider performing a pattern with specific maneuvers, which includes looping fast and slow circles, performing flying lead changes, spinning in each direction, sliding stops and backing up.
The next stage of the sport includes cow/fence work, where a single cow enters the arena on the opposite end of the horse and rider. The horse must first “box” the cow, or hold it at the end of the arena, maintaining control and staying in proper working position. Next, the rider allows the cow to run down the long side of the arena. The horse and rider must turn the cow at least one time each direction on the fence before taking the cow into the middle of the arena and driving it in a circle each way. For the steer stopping, horse and rider pursue a steer and perform a catch with a rope. Unlike rodeo events such as team roping or tie-down roping, in steer stopping competitors only need to catch the head and stop the steer.
When Hailey headed down to Texas in February for the Celebration of Champions she hadn’t considered The Run for a Million as the next step, and was solely focused on executing the work she had put in during practice. Horses must be at least 6 years old to compete and her “up and coming horse” RJ wasn’t quite ready for this type of event. Instead she rode a family friend’s horse Slider, which had been shown at lower level events but hadn’t competed since he was younger.
“My goal going down there was to be clean and correct with my horse, because I had put in all these hours trying to get him ready for this huge show,” Hailey said.
Hailey said that reining isn’t the top event for Slider (with registered name Chics Gunna Slide) but the horse and rider excelled across the board in the other portions of the competition.
“Cow horse, he’s perfect,” Hailey said of Slider. “In the roping (steer stopping), that’s kind of on you, but he puts you in that right position, he gets you where you need to be to succeed. Cutting, I honestly didn’t know he was as cool as he was in the cutting, he was honestly so great, and I couldn’t have asked for more.”
The Run for a Million isn’t the only big event Hailey had this summer. Last month she competed in the National High School Finals Rodeo in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where she was one of more than 1,700 contestants who came from 44 states, five Canadian provinces, Australia, Mexico and New Zealand. At the rodeo she competed with her 17-year-old horse Snuggles (Dulc Lil Toy) and 6-year-old RJ (Sharped Dressed Rey).
“I took Snuggles for the cutting and RJ for the cow horse,” Hailey said. “We had a little tough luck but my horses were really good. For our first high school rodeo it was a lot of fun.”
Hailey will be in action in the The Run for a Million Thursday and Friday, and a number of youth events are available for free with a live video feed at therunforamillion.com/watch-live. More information on all the events during The Run for Million can be found at therunforamillion.com.
“The Fort Worth Celebration of Champions is such a big thing to qualify for and then to have made into the finals for the World’s Greatest Youth, it’s so cool,” Emily said her daughter’s accomplishments. “They hand her the medallion, and say by the way you’re invited for The Run for a Million. It’s very cool, it’s very big, but she’s such a humble kid and that’s makes us very proud.”
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