It’s an early, hot morning in August as Nellie Miller and her husband James drive down the dirt road to Nellie’s parents’ house in Cottonwood. James says goodbye as he drops off Nellie and the couple’s two young daughters, Payton and Hadley, before leaving for work.
Nellie’s parents, Sam and Roxy Williams, put the two kids on their laps and drive off in an UTV to where there’s work to be done on the ranch before it gets even hotter. Now it’s time for Miller, a professional barrel racer, to practice.
More:Cottonwood's Burnsini Vineyards under new ownership
She leads two horses out of the barn to the arena at her parents’ place. The first horse is Blue Duck, the horse she used to compete on. The next is a 9-year-old Sister, who she’s competedon for about two years .
At this point in August, Miller is practically assured of qualification for the National Finals Rodeo, but practice is still necessary.
Her warmup on Sister starts in a slow trot, going through the motions around the barrels.
Then it’s a slow gallop for a little bit before going full speed, pointing to each barrel for Sister to tightly run around.
“(Sister is) just kind of an exceptional horse because she's so willing to do everything you ask of her and that's a big deal," Miller said. "She loves her job.”
Sister is the horse Miller will ride in Las Vegas under the lights, under the microscope of professional rodeo’s year-end championship, the National Finals Rodeo in December.
More:Three North State rodeo pros qualify for 'Super Bowl' of rodeos
Miller qualified comfortably for the NFR, finishing in third place overall in the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association standings with $130,536in season earnings. The top 15 riders all qualify for the year-end event.
Miller won three rodeos this year: the St. Paul Rodeo in Oregon, Reno Rodeo and The Ellensburg Rodeo in Washington state.
Those helped vault her up the standings, as did a second-place finish in July at the world-famous Calgary Stampede that paid $25,000.
Traversing the continent to compete in rodeos is her full-time job, one that can be difficult and taxing enough with the amount of driving and competing one has to somehow fit into a normal life. Equine care isn’t cheap, either.
But Miller is different from many of her competitors in that she has her two young daughters:Payton, 5, and Hadley, 2.
“I would say most of the women that rodeo either have older kids or they don’t have kids yet,” she said. “It’s hard with the little ones, so there’s really not too many of us out there that have little ones with us."
There’s no “prime” of a rider’s career or an age where women generally retire. For instance, Miller is 29, current world No. 1 Tiany Schuster is 40 and Mary Burger was 68 when she was crowned World Champion last year.
Of the few who do have young children, fewer bring the kids on the road with them. But this year, Nellie and her two daughters, along with either her mom, dad, husband or a caretaker, loaded up and headed out.
At first it caused some considerable anxiety for her. Miller worried whether she made the right decision, taking her young kids across the country for weeks at a time.
“But I think it ended up being really good for them," she said. "They got to see and do a lot of stuff normally kids wouldn’t get to do.”
When Miller gets to Las Vegas this December to compete in the 2017 World Champion, her family will be somewhere in the 18,645-seat Thomas & Mack Center watching her and Sister go for the win and the lucrative payday that awaits victorious barrel racers.
Going pro
Miller lives in Cottonwood not too far from her parents’ house, but is almost always at their ranch. She grew up in Cottonwood, competed in and won her first rodeo at 12. She did well enough in high school rodeo while attending West Valley High to get a scholarship to University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
After two years competing for UNLV’s rodeo team, her horse Blue Duck was running so well that she decided to go pro.
“I just didn't want to miss the opportunity as far as the horse goes, because you just don't know how long a horse is going to last,” Miller said.
In 2008, she finished in 33rd place, improved to 26th in 2009 then broke through in 2010, when she qualified for the NFR for the first time.
At the NFR that year, she met James Miller, who was working for a company that sponsored barrel racers at the NFR, including Nellie.
The two lived in Sweetwater, Tennessee, for a time, got married, had two children and moved to Cottonwood a few years ago. Miller went from a full-time barrel racer to a full-time mom, but she always kept a competitive desire, James said.
“It’s proven that she’s successful at it, she wanted to take the time to go ahead and get the kids raised and then go ahead and start back at it again and make a comeback and compete again,” said James Miller, who’s the general manager of the Red Bluff Round-Up. “She enjoys it.”
While raising her children, Miller had her father keep Sister in shape, knowing that Sister would be the one Miller would use in competition when she returned.
Last year she didn’t rodeo full-time but competed enough to qualify for the bigger rodeos this year, where she performed quite well, her family supporting her from the stands, on the road and at home.
All in the family
All the horses, cattle, ranch buildings and the friendly dog named Kate tell you there’s plenty going on at the Williams’ ranch.
Sam and Roxy Williams live in Cottonwood just across the Shasta-Tehama County line in an area of large properties and ranches.
But it’s not until you walk into the living room of the Williams house do you realize rodeo is a huge part of the family’s life.
Saddles are perched in separate corners of the living room. Next to one is a display case filled with dozens of belt buckles Sam Williams won over the years as a team roper with his partner, Joe Murray.
On top is a smaller collection of buckles and trophies that includesa silver bowl Williams won in 1977 at the St. Paul Rodeo in Oregon and a buckle Nellie won at the same rode this year— 40 years later.
“It is neat, because it's one of our favorites and I've always wanted to win it just because I always love going up there, it's one of the best ones,” Miller said.
The Calfiornia Rodeo Salinas also ties father and daughter.In 1980, Sam Williams won $4,000 and a new Toyota truck there, about as big a reward as rodeos had back then, he said. In 2016, Miller won in Salinas, helping her clinch the NFR that year.
"In 1980 the economy wasn’t good, we were all scrambling for money so that rodeo really came in handy, I just had a new baby boy; he was two weeks old,” Williams said. “I always held a special spot in my heart for the Salinas rodeo and then the year when Nellie made the finals in 2010 she won $8,000 there at Salinas; that kind of clinched the NFR for her that year. So I guess I always secretly wanted her to win it, so when she did win it, it was pretty special.”
Horses and rodeo run deep on both sides of the family.
Roxy Williams grew up in the Scott Valley in Siskiyou County before moving to Cottonwood in the fourth grade. Her father wasn’t a full-time rodeo cowboy, but still went to rodeos on weekends, taking his family with him.Sam grew up around horses, though his family wasn't heavily involved in rodeo.
The tradition continues, withPayton and Hadley coming along for the journey with their mother. She's home for now, but when the NFR starts on Dec. 1,it’s back to the long, busy road to everywhere, with Miller at the wheel, taking a moment every now and then to glimpse in her rear-view mirror to see her children sitting in the back seat.
Connect with reporter Patrick Carr on Twitter @PatrickCarr_RS, on Facebook at Patrick Carr RS or by email at patrick.carr@redding.com
