After two big point-producing weekends at Shoshone and Jerome, Wood River High School freshman Haillie Taylor has stretched her girls' all-around lead from two to 18 points in the 2009 Fifth District high school rodeo circuit standings.
Taylor will be coming back to Blaine County this weekend with a 161-143 cushion over fellow Fifth District rookie Valene Lickley of Valley after three of the five rodeos on this year's regular-season circuit.
Blaine County Fairgrounds in Carey is the site of this weekend's rodeo—Friday, May 9 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, May 10 at 5 p.m. Then it's on to Gooding County Fairgrounds for the district finals May 22-23, that Saturday finale starting at 1 p.m.,
The Idaho State High School finals are June 15-20 at Bannock County Fairgrounds, Pocatello. And the final cow cutting event of the Fifth District spring season is Tuesday, May 12 at 5 p.m. at Danny Thomason's arena in Jerome.
At Jerome last weekend, Taylor won both barrel racing go-rounds by substantial margins, placed second in breakaway roping Saturday and first in pole bending Friday. She teamed with Latner Straley to collect her first points in team roping—eight points for third place at 17.220 seconds in Saturday's muddy conditions.
For the weekend Taylor added 65 points to her season total, while Lickley managed plus-49. It meant Taylor's two-point lead over Lickley after Shoshone expanded to 18.
Taylor's winning barrel racing rides were 17.913 and 16.177 seconds. She is now leading the season standings in barrels 58-52 over Jerome's Samantha Logan. In breakaway, Taylor picked up nine points with her second-place 13.000-second ride Friday to move into fourth place with 22 points, Lickley leading at 55.
Making inroads in pole bending, Taylor trailed Lickley by 13 points entering the Jerome meet, but moved from third place into second just 45-44 behind Lickley. Taylor won Friday with a time of 20.940 seconds and placed second Saturday at 21.521. In Friday's goat tying, Taylor was fourth at 11.030 seconds. She now stands second in goats, 41-29 behind Jerome's Mattie MacGregor. Last year's all-round Fifth District boys' king Cy Eames of Gooding extended his lead in the 2009 boys' ranks to 157-116 over J-2 Bridges of Valley, with Gooding's Justin Parke in third place with 114.
Carey's Taylor Castle collected two more points at Jerome with a ninth-place pole bending run Saturday night, in 24.530 seconds. Not far behind in the poles was Danielle Hennefer of Carey with a 26.752. Castle also finished just out of the running for points in Friday's barrel racing with a 20.679-second effort.
