Hill Dazzles in pole bending

LAS VEGAS – Four years ago, Kashlee Hill was learning how to walk again.

Friday, the 10-year-old from Evanston, Wyoming, was tearing through the pole bending course in the Kelly Kaminski Run for Vegas at the YETI Junior World Finals. Hill and her horse Dazzle had a 19.43-second run – the fastest run of the week – to win the second go-round.

“I wanted to get the 19 on Wednesday, but I didn’t,” Hill said. “So I told my mom I wanted to practice a little bit more. And I got it today.”

Kelsea Hill, Kashlee’s mom, wasn’t surprised that her daughter wanted more practice time. After all, being on the back of a horse is where Kashlee feels at home.

“Her horses are her world,” Kelsea said. “She’s got a lot of people behind her, she loves it and she puts in the work every day.”

That world was put on the back burner four years ago when Kashlee was shot in the left foot.

“It was just a ranch accident,” Kelsea explained. “Her spur got caught on the trigger and we thought the gun was empty, but it wasn’t. The bullet went through the top of her foot and right out the side. We didn’t know until she kept saying, ‘My foot hurts.’ We pulled her boot off and there was nothing but blood.

“She had to relearn how to walk and balance, and she was non-weight bearing for three months.”

Kashlee doesn’t remember much about the accident – “I was pretty little.” – but she does remember sitting on the couch, where she mostly “slept and ate.”

As for the rehabilitation, Kashlee admits “the hardest thing was walking, but sitting on a saddle was easy.”

Her doctor forbade Kashlee from riding, but she convinced him to let her get on “once in a while.”

Kelsea wasn’t surprised.

“This is literally all Kashlee wants to do,” she said. “I’ve hauled her to Montana to work with (former College National Finals Rodeo national champion barrel racer) Tayla Moeykens and I’ve hauled her to Idaho to get more work.

“This is what she wants to do and we’re going to keep pushing until we reach the big lights one day.”

Standing nearby, Kashlee smiled and added, “Yeah!”

Kashlee has had success in Vegas before, finishing fifth in the average in junior barrels in 2023 and 10th last year.

She finished outside the top 20 this year in junior barrels but enters Saturday’s short go in poles sitting 11th with a two-run time of 45.211 seconds. Kashlee and Dazzle were in the middle of the pack after the first round, but Friday’s blazing run put her in position to earn some more hardware.

“Just to be clean was the biggest goal we had,” Kelsea said. “She told me, ‘I’m going to run a 19. I’m going to run a 19.’ I said, ‘OK, you can do it, kiddo. Just go have fun and have a clean run; you know how to do it.’ And that’s what she did.

“As a mom, I couldn’t be happier. We’ve worked so hard to get her where she is, and to have her put it together means so much.”