Aiming for the finals

Knee high to a pig's eye, Peggy Sue Garman was trying out her first rope.

At seven, she began attending rodeo clinics in Belle Fourche.

In high school, she made the National High School Rodeo team and reached the national finals.

At Casper College, she competed with the Thunderbird Rodeo Team.

At 22, she was among the first women to compete professionally in the breakaway event at Cheyenne Frontier Days.

At 25, she broke the arena record at the same venue.

And now, just about to turn 26, Garman and her equine partner, Cash, may be on the road to the finals on the professional circuit.

San Antonio Success

Two weekends ago, Garman entered the San Antonio rodeo. It was her first time there, because this was also the first time that women's breakaway was included as an event.

She walked away with a win in the third go-round of the second bracket.

"San Antonio is set up as a tournament-style rodeo. They invite 50 contestants in each event and set it up in what they call brackets," Garman says.

"There are ten contestants in each bracket and the top four who win the most money in their bracket advance to the semi-finals. The top five out of each semi-final advance to the final."

Garman won that third go-round of her bracket, winning a total of $1250. She missed advancing out of it by just $125.

"It's a rodeo that I do not ever want to miss again. I talked to a lot of people about it and heard lots about it before I went, and they all said it's loud and the crowd is so energetic," she says.

"I think they sell it out at 17,000 people, so it's a huge crowd in the AT&T Center, where the Spurs play basketball. Everyone is kind of right on top of you and it's unlike any other place I've ever been – when somebody makes a good run, that place explodes."

Garman is past the point where a crowd has an impact on her nerves. She's roped in enough places, she says, that she doesn't worry what's going on around her.

"I'm there to do my job, and I know that if I focus on my job then my horse is going to do his and normally there's going to be a pretty good outcome at the end, as long as I draw sharp and pull a calf that's going to let me make a good run on him," she says. "You feel the nerves, but I've learned to take that excitement and those nerves and turn it into positive energy."

Fresh Calves in Amarillo

As this week began, Garman had just returned from the Three Star Memorial Roping in Amarillo, Texas.

"I ended up winning eighth in one go-round and missed making it back to the top 15 short round by one spot," she says. "It was a good weekend."

This event used fresh cattle, which had an impact on her performance.

"It's probably one of my favorite set-ups because the calves have no idea what's going on and you really have to make sure that you ride your horse well and score sharp," she says.

"You really never know what the calves are going to do, either, and that played into how I ended up. I drew a calf in the third go-round that ran pretty hard and then kind of ducked off to the right wall and then I just had to go and rope him and see where it left me."

Aiming for the Finals

This is Garman's first year making a run for the finals – a decision that began forming last year during "Cowboy Christmas", a week jam-packed with rodeos over the July 4 holiday.

"Last year it didn't go great for me, so I wasn't really sure if I was going to rodeo very much after that," she says.

"Then, when I set the arena record at Cheyenne, I had a lot of people telling me, 'You need to enter. You have the horse, you have the ability, you need to get into the winter rodeos so you'll be able to have a shot of at least making the winter rodeos a lot easier to get into for [this season], if not make the national finals in the breakaway roping'."

And so, Garman left at the beginning of August and didn't come home until the last days of September, squeaking into Fort Worth and San Antonio this year to give herself a chance to rodeo more.

The season began in October and she has until September 30 to make it into the top sixteen to qualify.

"If that doesn't pan out, I definitely want to stay in the top 25 or 30 because that gets you into Houston, which pays $50,000 to win first. That makes a huge difference in being able to set yourself up," she says.

With placements decided according to a contestant's winnings, she says, and most rodeos paying out somewhere in the region of $2500 to $4000 in breakaway (which increases to $6000 around Cowboy Christmas}, Houston is an all-important contest. Lucking out there, or at Fort Worth, gives you a little padding and helps you pick and choose where else you want to go for the rest of the summer.

With this being Garman's first year aiming for the finals, Houston wasn't an option.

"In 2022, I didn't finish high enough in the standings to get into Houston, so that's why I'm probably going to have to drive a lot more – because I didn't have that chance to win $50,000 at one time," she says.

So far this season, Garman has been to five events that count towards her world standing. Before the end of September, she expects that to increase to between 60 and 80, depending how things go.

It's a little more than last year – but not by much.

"By the time I came home in September, I had been to 51," she says.

Women's breakaway isn't yet an official Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association event at all rodeos, Garman says, so there is no cap on how many rodeos will count towards a competitor's ranking.

"If you want to go to 125 rodeos this year, you can, but ideally, that's not what you want to do because you want to be able to keep your horses a little more fresh," she says.

On the Road

"I've been all over," Garman laughs. "Much of this year is going to be spent driving and spending a lot of time away from home."

She doesn't have to travel alone. Garman hauls with a few traveling partners to save on fuel and share the driving duties.

Her tentative plan is to start the summer in Reno, Nevada, traveling as a group of four humans and four horses. Most of the summer will be spent away from home, except for at least part of July, when a number of local rodeos are happening in Wyoming.

There's not much room for other activities when your schedule is packed with twice-weekly events. For now, rodeo is Garman's career.

"Growing up I loved roping and I loved the relationships that I had with my horses," she says. She always knew that she wanted a career involving horses, but she's still finding it surreal that, "All the hard work I put into it is actually coming to fruition and I'm getting to do this as a career, right now."

Garman is grateful for the support of her parents, Wayne and Dixie, and the many hours they've put into her success. They encouraged her to pursue rodeo as a career while she's still young, still free from commitments that would keep her from traveling and has a horse who's proven more than capable of doing the job.

"It may not look like every other career, but it is a lot of work and it's something that I love," she says.

Garman knows she'll always have the option to follow a different career path later, and all this travel might not hold her back – quite the opposite.

The relationships she builds on the circuit aren't just part of what makes her love rodeo– they also give her opportunity to network. When the time comes for a new path, she says, she will know who to approach to seek opportunities within the industry she loves.

There are days that she perhaps doesn't feel as enthusiastic, but she knows, "It's for sure worth it, and the relationships that you build out here are what makes it all worth it."

The Right Horse

In high school, Garman's roping partner was Begin a Legacy. A birthday present originally intended to be a barrel horse, he accompanied her on all her early roping experiences.

Today, Garman's partner is Cash, a three-fourths brother to Begin a Legacy.

"He's actually quite a bit bigger but they're both black. I think a lot of people think it's the same horse I was riding when I was in high school, but it's not," she says.

"He's a pretty good-sized horse and he loves his job. I can count on him to do his job all the time."

It's seldom down to Cash when things go wrong, she says.

"Most of the time, if we mess up, it was because I told him to do something wrong," he says. "It was the person on his back giving him the wrong cues or I just wasn't having a very good day."

He's also a great companion on the road.

"He has quite the personality – he's kind of a big goober," she laughs. "He's in your pocket and he likes to be loved on, but he takes his job very seriously."

The crowd in San Antonio did get him a little excited, she says, but he settled down as soon as he realized he was there to rope.

Cash is one of the bigger breakaway horses on the girls' circuit, she says, and that makes him her secret weapon. She feels like he gives her an advantage, because he can clear the distance to a calf in fewer strides than his smaller rivals.

Women's Events

Garman decided in college that breakaway was the event she wanted to focus on. At the time, it was not an obvious career path for a woman.

"In the last four years, breakaway roping at the professional level has just exploded...I think when I was in high school I would have been ecstatic to have these opportunities and to know there was a lot more to do for women who like to rope after high school and college," she says.

"It's amazing to look back and think that I used to drive past Frontier Park in Cheyenne and think how cool it would be to ever run a calf there – and then, four years later, in 2019, get to be one of the first 200 girls to ever get to rope in Cheyenne."

That first year of breakaway roping in Cheyenne, the first 200 girls to enter were given a place. The roster filled out within seven minutes, Garman says.

Garman then cemented her place in the history of Frontier Park by setting the arena record in 2022. Three seconds flat in the wild card round, she says.

"You dream of those things, but when it happens, you just have to try to take the time to enjoy the moment and realize that the hard work and the people who've come before you have paved the way so that you have those opportunities," she says.

"A lot of people get to win Cheyenne – there's someone that wins Cheyenne every year. But there may not be someone who sets the arena record every year. Being able to be written in the history books for that was pretty special to me, because Cheyenne is such a prestigious rodeo to even compete at."

There's something about Cheyenne, she says. It's hard to describe the feeling of the energy and fun – there's nowhere else like it, in Garman's book, and nowhere else that can make you feel the same way.

"That opportunity wasn't there until four years ago. It took a lot of ladies before me to pave the way so that could happen, and I think it's a great outlet for rodeo in general to have another women's event," she says.

It's not the only event on her favorites list. Rodeo fans will have plenty of opportunities to see Garman in action over the coming months and there are a number she's particularly looking forward to – some of them close to home.

San Antonio, she says, is "an experience in itself", while she's never been to Reno, Nevada and is excited to kick off the summer with a sell-out crowd in a huge arena.

"Of course, the ones closer to home. I love Belle Fourche, it's kind of like a hometown rodeo for me," she says.

"Cody and Sheridan are great rodeos and, honestly, I've had great luck at the Elizabeth Stampede in Colorado, ever since they've included the event. It feels like home to me because the arena is set back in some pine trees and the setting feels like I'm roping in my home arena."