Fourteen-year-old Hunta Gallacher of Bullsbrook has been crowned Australian Champion Junior All Round Cowgirl at the recent ABCRA National Championships held in Tamworth on the last weekend in January.
Hunta has spent the past year in the eastern states training and competing to achieve her goal, based at the stables of champion barrel racer Bianca Hertel in Coonamble, NSW.
“Pretty proud to walking away with an Australian title. The first Western Australia Junior ever to win an Australian title – dreams really do come true,” she said.
“It was her year to do it, it’s her last year in the 11-14 category so it was a great opportunity,” said mum Jodie Gallacher – a former rodeo competitor herself.
Hunta narrowly pipped at the post winner of the day at the the Ironman 4×4 ABCRA National Finals Junior Rodeo, Polly Gardner, with an overall points total of 128 points accumulated over the year.
Points for the All Round Champion are accrued from both barrel racing and roping events, but the year ten student at Bullsbrook Senior High School says the high speed barrels are her favourite.
Now back in WA for the new school year, Hunta will be the one cheering her mum on 26 March when she gets back in the saddle to raise money for breast cancer in the Hopes n Dreams Pink Lady Barrel Classic – see p 27.
In late breaking news, Cowboy Gerard ‘Westy’ Oversby has won the 2016 ABCRA National Rodeo All Round Champion Cowboy. Gerard is originally from Bindoon, where his family of sucessful rodeo riders includes older brothers Alister and Laurence Oversby, and sister-in-law Amanda who run the sucessful Bindoon Show rodeo each year.
Twenty-seven year-old Gerard has been based in Woolbrook, NSW and will now head off to Canada to compete as Australia’s top Bullrider. What an amazing amount of talent we have grown over here in WA!
