Emily (Miller) Beisel didn’t start out her life with horses, but they are the animals that changed her life and shaped her into the person she is today.
She grew up on a farm in southwest Kansas near Ingalls with two brothers. They grew wheat, corn, milo and a few soybeans. They did have a cat and a dog, and oh how she loved them.
Her grandmother was artistic and they spent hours together drawing. Emily’s obsession with horses was starting and they drew a lot of horses together. Her mom had a friend who had jumping horses and took her for a visit.
“My mom was like, ‘Emily is going through this pony phase and she will not let it go. We’ve got to nip this in the bud. Let’s put her on the biggest horse that you have. It’ll scare her and she’ll be done.’” Emily said. “I go ride this horse and it backfired. I was infatuated.”
She was about six years old at the time and her love of animals was now focused on horses. She had a babysitter, Jana (Wehkemp) Turner who had horses. Jana and her sister spent many hours with seven-year-old Emily talking about horses. Then their family started taking her to rodeos with them.
The bud that her parents tried to nip was growing into a full-blown Kansas sunflower. They helped the Millers find Emily’s first horse, Roper. He was about 30 minutes from their house, and for Emily, it was love at first sight. Her parents told her she could have a horse of her own when she was 12 and she had five years to go.
“I was pretty determined, well I still am a pretty determined person,” she said. “I’m hook line and sinker. I want a horse and I want Roper and I’m done for. They were teasing me with him and I threw the biggest little redhead fit that a seven-year-old girl could throw. I was very angry with my parents because I thought they were going to make me wait until I was 12.”
Little did she know that they had already purchased the horse. Her dad was ready to call and have them tear up the check because of her fit. Her mom intervened and Roper became Emily’s first horse with a long list of equine partners to come.
Along with a horse, they had to find a way to haul it, so her dad found a two-horse trailer that probably should have gone to the salvage yard. And they needed something to pull that trailer with. The salvage yard produced a pickup that they could afford, but it also needed work – like an engine. Emily’s dad put the pickup and trailer together so that Emily and Roper would have transportation.
She got involved in 4-H and started showing Roper, learning basic horsemanship. At the time, the reining classes were her favorite because she could go faster. Wanting to go fast might have come from following her brothers around and doing everything they did from riding go-carts to motorcycles and four wheelers to name a few. She even got her grandpa’s golf cart air born.
When she discovered that 4-H had speed events, she started doing more barrel racing and pole bending. Jana helped her find a horse. That led to Little Britches rodeos and her parents figured out that this wasn’t just a phase.
They never had to set an alarm clock for Emily. She was up at six in the morning and at the barn. Her mom would find her there and make sure she came in to eat. That paid off. She won her first saddle in a local association in the seven-to nine-year-old division. Knowing how dedicated she was, her parents looked for opportunities for her to improve. That led to lessons with Sabrina Devers, mother of NFR steer wrestler Cody Devers. It was through that relationship that she found the horse that solidified her path, a small Quarter Horse named Kid. She and Kid won the pole bending at the National Little Britches Rodeo Association Finals.
As she grew, so did her horse herd and her interests. She played basketball and volleyball, was in band and was in the scholars bowl throughout junior high. When she got into high school she played with the band as long as her rodeo schedule didn’t interfere.
And that rodeo schedule did interfere – to the point that her dad had to go to a school board meeting and explain why she was missing class. As a junior in high school, she qualified for the National High School Finals Rodeo (NHSFR) in five events, pole bending, goat tying, team roping, breakaway roping and the barrel racing. She also competed in the cutting and had 13 horses in her herd.
As she was growing up, her parents instilled a lot of lessons that helped her develop into the person and barrel racer that she is today. When they thought she was having too much fun and not taking the competition seriously, they got her a checkbook. She was eight years old. They told her when she had enough money in her checking account to pay her entry fees, they would take her to the rodeo. She never missed one because she couldn’t pay her fees.
Stepping up her game was important to all of them and finding a horse to do that with also came in high school. She didn’t qualify for the NHSFR as a freshman so went to the International National Finals Youth Rodeo in Shawnee, Oklahoma, where Jana let her ride one of her horses. Emily finished second behind Jordon (Peterson) Briggs.
Jana had a talk with dad, explaining that it takes just as much money to feed and haul a great horse and the search was on. Her father encouraged her to rope and tie goats because the horses weren’t so expensive. That also didn’t work.
They found a horse in Illinois, flew out to look at him and her dad told her that was the last horse he would ever buy her. She would start her sophomore year of high school with Brannon’s Party Time “Brannon” under her saddle, but she would have to learn how to make rodeo pay for itself from then on.
When Emily started college at Garden City Community College near her home, her parents told her that she had to take her horses with her. She thinned her herd and started competing in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association. After two years in Kansas, she moved to Oklahoma to attend Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford where she got her bachelor’s degree in health science. That is where she lives now with her husband, Austin Beisel.
She had originally wanted to be a dentist, but the man that influenced her suggested she become a dental hygienist because she could do that and rodeo. So, she sold most of her horses and started the two-year grind to get that degree. And when she is home, she still fills in at the dental clinic.
Not many rodeo competitors can remember the first time they ever rode a horse. Emily does and remembers it with the clarity of a life-changing experience. She is currently third in the world standings and will compete at her eighth Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in December. She also has a Ram National Circuit Finals title and has qualified for the Prairie Circuit Finals every year since joining the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association in 2013.
Her first buckle came in the mutton busting at Garden City’s Beef Empire Days. Since then she has won countless awards because of her love of horses. That passion sees her traveling across the country with at least three horses, a couple of dogs and strategizing how to do more than win. She is determined to do the very best for her horses, keep learning and striving to get better.
From a family with no horses to a barn full of them, Emily has become a barrel racer that girls playing rodeo across the country are pretending to be. And all of them are running at the NFR and hoping for the gold buckle that says they are the world’s best.