Riding for Rach

Rachel Hendrix’ legacy lives on through her horse, Blaze, and tight circle of devoted family and friends.
By Jolee Lautaret-Jordan
Rachel Hendrix had a short list of dreams. Like so many other young cowgirls, qualifying for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (WNFR) was one of them. So was making the cover of the Barrel Horse News.

Gone but never forgotten, Rachel Hendrix, riding her beloved Blaze Ta Fame at the 2011 NBHA Super Show in Las Vegas.

By all accounts, Rachel had every chance in the world to make those dreams come true. She was dedicated and determined, two traits that would serve well on the rodeo road. She also had a tremendous equine partner, the super fast sorrel gelding, Blazin Ta Fame, by Blazin Jetolena out of the Dash Ta Fame mare, Princess Dasher. A 2005 model, “Blaze” came to the Hendrix family when he was just a yearling and Rachel only 11.
“I’m an accountant so I’m a Type A planner,” says Annette Hendrix, Rachel’s mom. “I was thinking ahead, you know, the horse will be this old when she’s in high school and then she’ll probably want to go pro rodeo. So we got Blaze and that was the plan.”
The plan was derailed between Rachel’s freshman and sophomore years of high school. Her good horse, Johnny, was injured and had to be put down, leaving the young cowgirl afoot. Blaze was called to duty much sooner than planned; the 5-year-old had been doing time onlies but had never been competed on when Rachel and her dad, Clay, headed out to his first high school rodeo.
“My husband called me and said, ‘What the heck? How many times has this horse seen the barrels? I don’t think he even knows the barrel pattern,’” Hendrix chuckles at the memory. “He hadn’t been to a rodeo where he couldn’t go walk the pattern and trot the pattern before he ran. He wasn’t finished and hadn’t been hauled.”
Facing high school rodeo with green horses (her pole horse was young, as well), Rachel had her work cut out for her.
“She had a lot of tears and a lot of frustration,” admits Hendrix. “We started getting to the rodeos early so Rachel could take Blaze and ride him quietly around the perimeter of the arena so he could see the banners. She would do whatever it took.”
The proud mother is quick to point out that Rachel did all the riding on her horses in high school.
“I grew up surfing in Huntington Beach,” says Hendrix. “I wasn’t a barrel racing mom. Vickie [Carter] was her barrel racing mom and Danyelle [Campbell] was her barrel racing mom. Rachel didn’t have someone who could get on and school her horses for her; I couldn’t do it. She had to do it all on her own.”
The hours of hard work soon paid off. By her junior year, Rachel and Blaze, still just 7 years old, began to dominate in Nevada High School Rodeo Association, winning the year-end barrel racing title. Rachel also won the all-around title and qualified for nationals in the pole bending.
“I remember thinking, ‘You deserve this, nobody has worked harder to get to this point than you,’” says Hendrix, noting that Rachel poured all her passion into her horses. “Rachel made that horse. It was her blood, sweat and tears. Her times of crying…but she got to experience the sweetness of being successful at something she worked so hard at.
“And he loved Rachel,” Hendrix continues, remembering a day when Rachel’s younger brother, Caleb, tried to warm him up for his sister. “He ran off with him in the warm-up pen! And if it doesn’t like you, he’ll buck too.”
Rachel and Blaze went to the 2012 National High School Finals Rodeo and finished fourth. The tough cowgirl was just adding to her incredible resume, which already included the 2011 National Little Britches Rodeo Association’s world titles in senior girls breakaway roping and the all-around.
Adversity hit again before her senior year. Rachel’s pole horse was injured and just when he came back, Blaze went down with a major injury that would take him out for more than a year.
“She was crying and I told her I knew it was a huge challenge when you don’t have your horses,” Hendrix recalls. “But I said, God must have something He wants you to learn from this, something you can use in the future.
“I just didn’t know it wasn’t something for here…it was something she needed for when she was with Him.”
Comeback trail
Rachel worked diligently to rehab her string and cope with finishing out her very successful high school rodeo career.
“Blaze had to have stem cell treatments and we never had to ask her to do what was needed,” says Hendrix of her daughter’s work ethic. “She would be out there in the wind, the snow, the rain doing his rehab, whether it was walking him for 20 minutes or walking and then trotting.”
Without Blaze for most of the year, Rachel still qualified for nationals in barrels and breakaway roping. She would finish third in the latter. Over the course of her four years, Rachel had qualified to the NHSFR in every event at least once.
In 2013, Rachel graduated with honors from Churchill High School in her hometown of Fallon, Nev., and moved on to compete with the rodeo team at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. In fact, she and Blaze were leading the Rocky Mountain region standings at the semester break. She had also met Wayce Pulham, a boy she told her mom was the one she wanted to marry.
But while home on Christmas break, Rachel confided to her mother that she wasn’t enjoying college rodeo and that she hoped to transfer to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and start trying out the pro rodeo circuit.
“I was telling her dad that if she really wanted to know how she stacked up [against the pro girls] that she should go to Buckeye for the Greg Olsen in January,” remembers Hendrix. At her husband’s insistence, she called Rachel and pitched the idea. “I was thinking, ‘She won’t want to come, she’s in college now and she’s in love.’ She’d never say no, but she’ll say she has homework or a project she’s working on, which is code for, ‘I don’t want to be with you, I want to be with my boyfriend!’ But I called her and she said, ‘OK great, I’m game.’”
So mother and daughter headed to Arizona, meeting up in Las Vegas. The weekend began with a hit barrel on Friday night, but they had a good conversation about the misstep.
“I was so glad that our relationship had evolved to where she wanted to hear what I had to say,” Hendrix says. “I couldn’t ride them, but I spent 20 years on the fence watching and I’m analytical so I can tell you what went wrong. But sometimes the teenager in her came out and she wouldn’t listen to me since I don’t ride myself.”
Such was not the case that weekend in Buckeye.
“We had a fabulous weekend. It was so fun being there. It was a gift from God, spending three days just her and I at a barrel race,” Hendrix recalls.
They also had the opportunity to spend time with Campbell, a long time friend of Rachel’s.
“We rode quite a bit together when she was little,” Campbell remembers, adding that soon after she was hauling the young girl with her to barrel races. “After they moved to Fallon [from Las Vegas], I didn’t see her as much since I wasn’t going to the barrel races. We ended up parked next to her at Buckeye and it was her and Annette and me and my mom. We spent hours talking and she was the same, vibrant kid she had always been. I’m so grateful I got to see her there.”
On Saturday night, Rachel and her mother were waiting for Rachel’s competition and sat in the grandstands watching at about 11 p.m., when Vickie Carter came to run.
“She came up to us in the holding area and we were just chatting,” says Hendrix. “Then, I’m sitting up there in the bleachers all alone at 1:45 a.m. and I hear someone coming up the stairs at quarter to 2 in the morning, and it’s Vickie.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ And she said, ‘I’ve got to watch my girl run.’”
It would be the last time that any of Rachel’s “moms” got to be with her.
Two weeks later, Rachel, the fierce competitor, the kind girl with the warm heart, was gone. While sleeping in her living quarters trailer, fumes from a generator left too close spit fatal levels of carbon monoxide into the rig. Rachel died Jan. 26, 2014 at the age of 18.
Her boyfriend Wayce was also in the trailer and was hospitalized for a long time. He would eventually recover from carbon monoxide levels that should have taken his life as well.
A new plan

Vickie Carter rides for Rachel aboard Blaze Ta Fame at the PRCA rodeo in Buckeye, Ariz.

Faced with a devastation that no parents should endure, the Hendrix family tried to pick up the pieces, and many within their local community of barrel racers wondered what would become of Blaze.
“When she passed away, there were a lot of people who subtly tried to get Blaze,” says Hendrix. “We knew we wouldn’t sell him…we won’t sell any of her horses.”
“I’m religious and I just started to pray. Who would Rachel really let swing their leg over her horse? And I realized that God had taken care of everything before she passed away. Vickie Carter was there at 2 a.m., so when I asked that question, Vickie was the only name I could come up with.”
Carter remembers getting a text from Annette, asking if she’d be willing to help put together a benefit in Rachel’s name.
“Then they sent me a text, ‘do you want to ride Blaze in the benefit?’” Carter remembers, saying she agreed despite the fact she had never ridden the gelding. “Then Annette sent me another text, ‘do you want to try to make the NFR on him? I know that’s always been one of your goals and you’ve always had to sell all your good horses.’”
In fact, Carter has spent a lifetime training horses, competing in futurities and the Central Texas Barrel Racing Association when she lived in Texas, but had never bought her card with the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association.
“I was in the business to train horses and sell them, so all the good ones I ever had, soon as I’d get close to filling a permit or soon as I’d fill a permit, they were gone,” Carter says.
Perhaps, as Hendrix thought, God had intervened. Working for another family at the time, Carter had asked for a break to go to Arizona for two weekends. That’s when she met up with Annette and Rachel in Buckeye.
“Rachel was the last person to run for the whole barrel race and it was 2 or 3 in the morning,” remembers Carter, noting that Annette was surprised to see her. “And I said, well, she’s half my daughter, too, and I came to watch her. I can sleep any time.
“That night she said, ‘only you would do that for my kid,’” says Carter, recalling Annette’s remark.
Carter remembers the first time she met Rachel, who was about the same age as her own son, Colton. They were at a Wrangler Junior Rodeo Association rodeo in Pahrump, Nev., where Carter was serving as the barrel racing director while hauling her son to compete. Rachel was only about 10 or 11 years old.
“Rachel was on a horse that wouldn’t go in down the long alley. I really didn’t know them; I just went up to them and I said, ‘I’m sorry and it might not be my place, but that horse is going to really hurt your daughter,’” Carter recalls. It was the beginning of a long friendship and the horse, Johnny, was soon at Carter’s for training.
Meanwhile, while Carter had Johnny, Campbell arranged for Rachel to run JDC Best Efforts, or “JD,” the horse that carried Sue Smith to a Wilderness circuit championship and Molly Powell to the Olympic gold medal in Salt Lake City in 2002. Rachel needed a mount for the NBHA Super Show in Las Vegas and, proving her mettle as a jockey, she won a go-round at the super competitive event, outrunning over 600 riders, including Campbell.
“She was fun and she was always happy,” Campbell remembers. “At the NBHA that year when she won the first go, we were riding together and giving each other a hard time; it was an ongoing joke between us, who was going to win that day. And she told me, ‘You better sharpen your spurs because I’m coming after you today.’ Then she goes out and wins the round! It wasn’t arrogant or obnoxious, it was just the cutest thing, and she backed it up.”
“She was a great kid, always an absolute pleasure to be around,” Campbell says. “She was something really rare to run into. She was genuinely sweet and had a great desire to learn, to win.”
Carter, too, has high praise for the kid that grew to be like her own, not only for her outstanding horsemanship but also for the person she was.
“She was a heck of a rider – she was aggressive. I don’t care if she was 20th out and it was snowing, that girl rode to win, every single time, and that’s what’s made that horse. Rachel was always such a positive person…she had a smile on her face, no matter what.”
A new partnership
Carter picked up “Blaze Man,” as she calls him, and headed to a jackpot in St. George, Utah, right down the road from her home in Richfield, Utah. The Hendrixes had persisted in talking Carter into running there, setting aside the concerns that that was where Blaze had been injured so badly a few years prior. She relented because Rachel had won a race there after her runs in Buckeye, her final run before she passed away.
“The first run scared me absolutely to death, I’m going to be honest,” says Carter.
“Annette had told me, ‘He’ll be a real dodo and you won’t like him sometimes,’” Carter remembers, noting that Blaze can be a handful at times. Prepping for her run in the holding area, Blaze ran off down through the barns, going sideways as fast as possible. “I’m like, oh my gosh, you’ve got to be kidding.”
It was an inauspicious beginning for the new partnership.
“They’d call me about things when they were having trouble and we’d discuss it and Rachel would work on it, but it was probably six months in between when I’d see her runs,” Carter says. “The instructions they gave me when I took him were to just drop your hand at the barrel and sit down and trust him.”
In St. George, once Carter got the spunky sorrel back to the arena, she made her run, breaking the arena record.
“So, the second day [at St. George], I’m like, ‘OK I can’t do this, I’m doing it my way.’ Well, I picked him up, we went to the fence on the first barrel,” Carter laughs.
Later, at the first benefit barrel race for the scholarship program the Hendrixes established in Rachel’s name, they laid the groundwork for the new plan.
“I just said, the only thing I’m going to tell you before I take him…he has to become my horse now. He can’t be Rachel’s anymore. The only way he and I can get together is we have to be on the same page. They said, ‘Here you go.’”
The plan was for the duo to acclimate at Wilderness circuit rodeos while Carter worked to fill her permit again.
“Rachel had taken him to Little Britches finals, high school finals; he’s been to the dance. He knows what to do,” Carter says. “She did an awesome job on him. She really did. I give her all the credit. I think maybe I rounded the edges off.”
After the somewhat shaky start, Carter and Blaze began to get together and she filled her permit very quickly. She would have easily qualified for the Wilderness circuit finals in October 2014, but did not purchase her card in time. Instead, she settled for the Wilderness circuit permit championship and a chance to run for WPRA Rookie of the Year in 2015.
There were plenty of lessons learned through the summer. Carter remembers one weekend she had run at three rodeos and was headed to Salina, Utah, for their big barrel race.
“I called Clay and I said, ‘I’m going to give Blaze tomorrow off and I’ll just run him Sunday,’” she says. “He said, ‘excuse me, what did you just tell me?’ I said, ‘I’m going to give him the day off.’
“He said, ‘So if you make the NFR, are you going to tell me on the fifth run that you’re not going to run him?’ I said, ‘Well, that’s a little different.’ He said, ‘No, it’s not. We’re trying to figure out what he can take and what he can’t take this year.’”
Carter made some big waves through the summer of 2014, none bigger than her win at Burley, Idaho in August.
“He ran phenomenal there. It was unbelievable,” Carter remembers.
“He took off from the back of the alley. He had to be doing 500 mph going to the first barrel and honestly, it’s the only time I’ve run him that I thought I was going to fall off,” she says. “He turned so hard on the back side of the first barrel; it was like he was going that way and I was going the other way. And we almost hit it on the back side because he was trying to wait for me. I knew it was fast, but I never dreamed it would be that fast. I’ve never run a 16 in my life!”
In fact, their run of 16.87 seconds on a full WPRA pattern established a new arena record.
After a good rest through the winter, Carter hit the rodeo trail feeling ready to take on the world. Blaze was a “fire breathing dragon” after the break, and the pair made Odessa, Texas, in January their first stop. Unfortunately, the trip was not successful and the pressure got the better of the veteran cowgirl.
“I called Clay and said you need to take the horse home, I can’t ride him,” says Carter, adding that Hendrix quickly refused. “He said, ‘You have another rodeo, just quit worrying about it. You’re trying too hard.’
“It’s a tough deal, in a way; there’s a lot riding on my shoulders,” says Carter. “When people want to buy him, I’m like, ‘Are you sure?’” Carter says she and the Hendrixes were met at the trailer after their record-breaking run in Burley. “An individual offered them a lot of money, and Annette says, ‘Nobody else will throw their leg over that horse, that’s not our plan right now.’”
While she was not qualified to compete in many of the big money rodeos in the winter that have limited entries, she has made the most of her runs since Odessa, winning rodeos in Yuma and Fort Mohave, Ariz., and sharing the win in Bakersfield, Calif.
“I call Annette every time after I run, regardless of whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent,” Carter says. “They’re part of it.”
Ridin’ for Rach

Carter hopes to honor the memory of Rachel Hendrix riding the young cowgirl’s outstanding Blaze Ta Fame in pursuit of an NFR qualification.

The emotional aspect of this journey is high for both the Hendrix family and for Carter, who always competes in a shirt with the words, “Ridin for Rach.”
“I’ve always believed in God. When my mom died, I was still in Texas, and I honestly saw a vision. I was there in my room and I couldn’t quit sobbing. I couldn’t. Until you experience it yourself, you don’t believe it, but the whole room lit up. I knew she was there,” says Carter. “There are times when I know Rachel is there.”
At Fort Mohave, Carter told her friend there was an angel sitting in the clouds.
“She couldn’t see it, but it was a perfect angel right there for me to see. I know there are times she is there.”
“It’s the hardest thing for Annette. She asks, ‘Why did it have to be my girl?’” Carter states. “At first, she would be so honest, she would say, ‘I’m so happy for you but on the same token I really wish it was Rachel.’ I said you have to remember, it is Rachel, she’s with us. This is all of us doing it.”
“She [Carter] broke another arena record the other day,” says Hendrix. “And it’s hard because it’s not Rachel. I’m happy for her success, but sometimes it’s sad.”
“Rachel knew that horse could do it. She dreamed, like lots of little girls, of running at the Thomas and Mack and she used to tell me, ‘Mom, I know he’ll come out of that alley and just nail the first barrel.’”
Hendrix says that Carter and Rachel say a lot of the same things about the scrappy sorrel gelding that has bonded them all together.
“It’s eerie sometimes,” Hendrix says, choking up a little at the thought. “But I think that’s Rachel, making sure we know exactly what she wants.”
Hendrix remembers the last time Rachel was home in Fallon, for Christmas in 2013. The family’s farrier, who was like a second father to Rachel, was teasing her, saying he wanted to be the one in the alleyway at the WNFR when Rachel made it, helping with that “crazy barrel horse.”
“Rachel just smiled and said, ‘I’ll get you two nights.’ So, that’s our plan. I’ve got to get him his two nights,” Hendrix says. “We’re going to try to get half her dreams accomplished. If she can’t get there, at least maybe her horse can.”
The journey has touched many hearts across the rodeo world, too, and Blaze Man and Carter have a growing fan base. Carter notes that rodeo announcer Dan Fowlie was moved to tears after hearing the story before the rodeo in Yuma.
“He interviewed me before the rodeo,” Carter says. “So I told him the story and he broke down and said he had just lost his daughter. So I think that’s a lot of it, people will send me a text and say, ‘you haven’t posted anything.’”
After every run, Carter posts to Rachel’s Facebook page.
“After Yuma, when Annette called me, she said Rachel was riding with you and your mom was in the stands. I believe it! I don’t know how to explain it, I can feel her presence. There’s nothing I want more than to go down that alley and have them announce, Ridin for Rach. Honestly, if it weren’t for Rachel, I wouldn’t be here.”
Las Vegas or bust
“I still think I can make it, if I do it right. I can’t run the wheels off of him,” Carter says. “I think it’s possible and if it’s meant to be…I mean, I’ve got a lot of angels on my back.”
“When I left from paying my fees in Yuma, I was in tears from that announcer. And that day at St. George, Annie Johnson did a tribute as I was going through the gate. I swear I could barely even see the first barrel. But I’ve gotten through it; I feed off of it now.”
Carter was 32nd in the WPRA world standings on May 11. She’s earned $14,474 in just 17 rodeos and is leading the WPRA’s tour standings. She’s also fourth in the super competitive Rookie race, having been to about half the rodeos her competitors have. Carter is planning a big summer push, much to be spent inside her home circuit, the Wilderness circuit. But, she’s quick to point out that this story is about Rachel.
“It’s not so much me, it’s her,” she says. “I want her story told.

Rachel Hendrix and Blaze Ta Fame at the 2013 Utah State University College Rodeo in Logan, Utah. The Rachel Hendrix Memorial Scholarship is another way of keeping Rachel’s memory alive. The scholarship is funded through private donations as well as memorial team ropings and barrel races and Riding for Rach wristbands. The inaugural scholarships were awarded to Amberley Snyder and Colton Carter, Vickie’s son.
The Rachel Hendrix Memorial Scholarship is open to high school seniors who have competed in at least two of their four years High School career in rodeo and have been a member of the Nevada or Utah High School Rodeo Associations.
Applicants must complete a 300-word of less essay expressing their enthusiasm and zeal for rodeo and return along with official high school transcripts and a resume. Scholarships will be presented to a boy and girl from each state paid by semester with the second half contingent upon the student’s first semester grades.
Send all materials to: Rachel Hendrix Memorial Scholarship Fund, PO Box 5611, Fallon, Nevada 89406. FMI contact Kendra Sagers at (435) 851-0868.

Carbon Monoxide Precautions
Carbon monoxide (CO) is emitted in exhaust from many sources including gas/diesel engines, including generators, and propane fueled heaters. CO is incredibly dangerous if inhaled because it replaces oxygen in the bloodstream, which can lead to cellular death and organ failure.
Because it is odorless, tasteless and invisible, CO poisoning can occur without your knowledge, so be aware of the following safety tips and early warning symptoms.
Safety Tips

Always use a CO warning detector that is in good working condition. Your warning device should be tested periodically by a professional to ensure that there are no defects.
Ensure proper ventilation in your trailer. This may include leaving your roof vent open when running propane or gas fueled appliances no matter the time of year and being mindful of where you park. Even thick weeds, close buildings and snow banks can trap exhaust near your trailer, increasing the chance of it affecting your air quality.
Make sure your generator is not running close to your trailer, or if it’s a built-in, ensure that exhaust can escape away from the trailer. You may need to watch out for wind direction as well. Never run your generator inside the horse portion of your trailer while you sleep in the living quarters.
Don’t use any appliances or generators that have had damage to exhaust systems or are not working properly. Have a professional provide maintenance periodically.

Early Warning Symptoms

Headache
Dizziness
Nausea
Drowsiness
Confusion

If you don’t feel well, immediately shut off any fuel burning devices (or other possible CO sources) and move to get fresh air. You should also seek medical attention immediately.
(Sources: carbonmonoxidekills.com; EquineRV.com)

Jolee Lautaret-Jordan is a three-time National Finals Rodeo qualifier and six-time Ram National Circuit Finals qualifier who provides color commentary for ProRodeo Live/SiriusXM80 for events like the NFR and the PBR World Finals. Lautaret is a highly decorated all-around cowgirl known for her commitment to the rodeo industry as a talented journalist and dedicated WPRA member. Email comments to bhneditorial@cowboypublishing.com.

Tags: from the magazine, rachel hendrix, vickie carter