From a health standpoint, rodeo has been a challenge for Elaine Watt.
She's been in the sport for decades and has suffered her share of injuries.
"I got run over by my daughter's goat-tying horse. Lost my spleen and wrecked eight ribs," Watt says, although she notes that's not directly related to her specialty — barrel racing.
However, she admits she has suffered other injuries.
"I have fallen, got stepped on before. And I've had several concussions when the horse slipped; knocked myself out," Watt says.
But that hasn't deterred her.
And she's been dominant. Watt was the Canadian barrel racing champion in 1978, 1979 and 1982.
Watt began hanging around rodeos when she was just a little girl, thanks to her dad, a Manitoba farmer.
"My dad was a farmer, but he loved rodeo. He absolutely loved rodeo — and horses," she says. "I probably started just at the little county fairs at about six years old."
When Watt was about 12, a woman who is now 68 years old introduced her to barrel racing.
"It was thrilling. And I got to run her good barrel horse — fell off at the clinic the next day, but I can still remember that first run," she says.
Rodeo runs in the family.
Watt has six kids — five daughters and a son.
"It's hard to believe that my five girls have gone to rodeo scholarships because they could goat-tie," Watt says.
Her son, a veterinarian, used to rodeo. Now he and his wife play polo.
"I think it's like playing hockey on horseback. And he enjoys that. But he can rope," Watt says.
