(Fremont County, WY) – Three local sisters have teamed up this year for the very first time to compete in the Horse Nations Indian Relay Council 2021 Tour of Champions. The first events of the season kicked off this month in Hardin, Montana followed by Buffalo, Wyoming.
Tuesday, Kiyotee and Zia Washakie are team Oo Vee Das and placed first in the women’s relay at both events. This has already earned them a spot in the 2021 Championship of Champions in Casper on September 24th-26th.
While this is their first year competing together as a team, the three have previously competed on other teams. 20-year-old Tuesday began in 2015, and following in her footsteps were younger sisters 14-year-old Zia and 16-year-old Kiyotee who started in the subsequent years.
“We thought it was fun,” Tuesday shared about the relays. “It’s different and it’s challenging. You get to meet new people and see different things.”
“We’ve been wanting to do it like this for a while,” she continued. “We just didn’t have our own stuff.”
They have been preparing for this relay season since last fall but didn’t fully start practicing until March. This last winter, Tuesday was able to purchase a thoroughbred making this dream of becoming team Oo Vee Das closer to reality.
Since the women’s relay uses two horses they also trained Tuesday’s saddle horse, which she uses for rodeo, to relay as well.
The three practiced with them almost every day in some capacity by either taking them to the track or just taking them out to ride, they shared. While relaying on other teams gave them experience, they think working together is more organized and it’s helpful to know the horses.
“We can make plans according to each other that match up with the individual horses,” Tuesday said.
So far, their team positions have worked out for them: Kiyotee rides, Tuesday is the holder and Zia catches.
“We went into our first race not knowing how it’d go but I just kept telling the girls, ‘let’s do a good practice run and be smooth we got it,'” Tuesday shared. “Our practice runs were really coming together and we came into the race prepared and ready to do what we practiced.”
Other teams also provided help during their first race as Oo Vee Das.
“Our first race with our own horses; we didn’t know exactly what we were doing,” she continued. “We were parked by a men’s team, Mountain River, they helped us a bunch and gave us some good advice going into it. Rocky Hill was also a big help.”
The three have also rodeoed for pretty much their entire lives which includes barrel racing as well as team and breakaway roping.
This summer will be a balance of schedules around both the relays and rodeos. They enjoy them all equally but shared they are really liking relay right now.
“The Indian rodeos and relays are family-oriented,” Tuesday said. “We like that we can compete together because it is family-oriented; we think that is really cool and everyone seems like a big family when you go to them.”
The three thanked their dad, Tibbs Washakie, along with Horse Nations and their sponsor, Spear W, for coming and supporting them and helping when they needed it. They also thanked their dad again for letting them use his truck and trailer, and for keeping them in check.
“Overall just a good experience with very welcoming people,” they said about the relays.
To those who would like to get into relays, they said “just be patient and slowly work at getting where you want to be.”
You can follow the relays on the Horse Nations Indian Relay Facebook page and website.
