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I had no choice but to
like horses. I was
more or less born in
the saddle.
Maeghan Boucher, 16
Rodeo competitor
Vermont.-When she reached Sperryville, she says, “I wanted to rodeo.”
Previously in Vermont, she had appeared in gymkhanas, an East coast hybrid that no self-respecting Western cowboy would dignify with the name rodeo.
After school each day, Boucher saddles up and trains or heads off for at least an hour on trail rides with her mother.
The responsibility of caring for the family’s five horses, she says, gives her “people skills. You learn patience. Rodeo people in general are light and easygoing.”
And the VHSRA will not let members compete in rodeos who fail an academic subject. Boucher gets mostly A’s, she says, on her report cards.
She says she does not know where she wants to attend university, but a visitor notices that she is wearing a University of Virginia sweatshirt.
She feeds the horses and the dogs each night. “We’ve always had dogs,” and she points to the kitchen floor where Benjamin, a Golden-CollieHusky mix and Melli, an Australian shepherd puppy, are sprawled.
Despite an early start with horses and her subsequent successes, she did not come easily to rodeos. “I got so nervous in my first rodeo I felt sick to my stomach,” she said. “A friend said, ‘Go! You’re up!”*
Her dad, Bob Boucher, was often present to give her a pep talk, with step-by-step instructions about what to do.
“Now I just have butterflies in my stomach, so I go off by myself and give my horse a talk and tell him to run clean and ask God to keep us safe. And somebody yells. You’re on,’ and we’re off running.”
Della, her first rodeo horse, a palomino quarter horse, was a recalcitrant mare who “decided she didn’t
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