From 1978 to 1981 Martha Josey was a dominant force in the barrel racing. Aboard Sunny Bit of Both in 1980, she became the only cowgirl to ever win a WPRA World Title and an AQHA World Title in the barrel racing in the same year.
Josey found Sunny when he was just three years old in 1978. The horse was consistent and never hit barrels, a barrel racer’s dream. Although Josey made the finals on him in 1978, she decided to go for the World Title in 1980 and it came down to Round 10, competing against three of her students, before she came out with the win.
Josey would go in 1981 to break her pelvis early in the year, swimming Sunny to keep him in shape and ready for the Finals, to competing in at another National Finals Rodeo.
“The good Lord helped me and just putting all my faith in that I can do anything if I try hard enough and that’s what we teach in all of our clinics: never give up. And I knew I couldn’t give up,” she said.