Summer Kosel qualified for her first National Finals Rodeo in 2023. Growing up on the race track and taking a pony horse to learn barrels at the ripe age of three is how it all got started for Kosel.
Kosel grew up breaking colts and one day, her father gave her a three-year old right off the track and that would be the horse that she ran.
“We always ran really fast but didn’t always turn but it really taught me a lot about learning to work with a horse and how important it was to have good horsemanship. It took the fear out of a lot of things,” Kosel said.
With dreams of being a coutnry singer, Kosel’s barrel racing took a back seat early on as she focused on her dreams. She went to Nashville and singing was front and center on her mind until the day she became a mom.
“It was all worth it and it was exactly how God had planned it all out. But then I became a mom and that was more important to me than anything,” she said.
Kosel took a ten-year break from rodeo as she was building her family but after her third child, her husband brought up running barrels again. She now has four kids and a spectacular equine athlete named Apollo, the horse that took her to her first ever NFR.
