A WPRA rookie this year, Paige Jones is just 18. Her horse High Cotton Lane, known as Cotton, is only 6. But lack of experience has never kept these two from notching some big wins.
In his first ever barrel race at the local Guthrie high school rodeo, Cotton and Paige took first. In 2018, they won the BFA World Championship Futurity title after deciding last minute to enter. Last week in Woodward, Oklahoma, Paige placed second out of more than 100 barrel racers — beating out big names such as Ivy Hurst, Lisa Lockhart, Stevi Hillman, Dona Kay Rule (who rides the 2019 Horse of the Year), and Hailey Kinsel, to name a few. it was Cotton’s first time running on rodeo ground.
The key to their success seems to be a strong kinship and need for speed.
Paige says while Cotton isn’t the best behaved, his love of racing is undeniable.
“He’s a mess, but he’s my best friend. He’s goofy, as you can tell,” she says. “He doesn’t really like to stand still ... He loves to run, and he knows that’s his job, so that’s his favorite thing to do.”
While Paige currently sits at 84th in the WPRA World Standings, she’s than $17,000 out of the top 15, and she says her goal is to make NFR in her rookie year.
It will take some a lot of rodeoing for her and Cotton to earn enough to get to Vegas this year, especially in light of the Coronavirus and the many major rodeo cancellations, but hustle doesn’t seem to be an issue for these two.