Jordan family of champions wrangles a passion for rodeo

At their annual family meeting, the Lucas parents ask their five kids: Are you still game for rodeo?

The four sisters and brother, between 10 and 21 years old, say yes every time.

The siblings' dedication to riding horses shows in scholarships, traveling and glass cases displaying belt buckles in their Jordan home. They waste no time, as their carpeted living room floor is smattered with plastic pony toys and barns to occupy the youngest.

This July, three of the four sisters, McKayla, 19, Jacqueline, 16, and Lydia, 10, won at the National Little Britches Rodeo Association World Championships in Oklahoma. Their mother, Laura, started the first Little Britches franchise in Minnesota five years ago to build a community of riders closer to home.

Little Britches is a national nonprofit for riders between 5 and 18. Founded in 1952, the youth organization sanctions rodeos across the country, and the Lucas sisters defeated more than 160 competitors in each of their winning categories.

The sisters, clad in denim, cowgirl hats and button-down shirts, each placed in separate categories. McKayla and Lydia placed for pole bending, or snaking around six poles on horseback. Barrel racing is more Jacqueline's speed; she raced a cloverleaf pattern around preset barrels.

Rodeo — more popular in Southern states, like Texas — might seem an unlikely fit for a state more cut out for cross-country skiing.

"Being from Minnesota, they think we don't even know what side of the horse to get on," said paternal grandmother Nikki Lucas, who shares the 40-acre property in Jordan with her son's family.

The next-generation Lucases live on 10 acres of farmland. Along with a dog, they own some other animals: 14 horses, a couple of goats. The latest addition: a dummy goat named "Jeff," a goat-tying stand-in because the living goats are pregnant.

"I guess [Dad] wanted more goats or something, even now," Jacqueline said. "Mom wants me to get better at goat-tying."

During the summers, she wakes up around 8:30 a.m. to release and feed the horses, then rides three or four of them before taking lessons until 2 p.m. Other chores might include cleaning the barn.

Over the last month, the teenager traveled to both Oklahoma and Wyoming for competitions. She's planning to study elementary education and is gunning for a full ride to college, perhaps in Colorado, like her older sister McKayla. McKayla attends Western Texas College with hopes of a career as a veterinarian.

Some college students may contemplate buying or renting a mini fridge for their dorm room. In their financial planning, the Lucases have already asked their kids: "Do you want to bring a horse?" And Jacqueline does.

"A lot of people are confused or don't understand until they see videos, or if they actually go," Jacqueline said. "They think I could ride my little pony with my pink boots around outside."

It's far more laborious.

"I'm doing what I'm doing, which is actually competing and going to nationals and winning money for it," she said.

Tracking progress

Traveling light doesn't apply for a family who hauls a red trailer stocked with a hoofed 4-foot animal, plus a motor home, across state borders.

"A lot of the time we look at it as, 'that's our entertainment,' " Laura said. "We don't go to movies, we don't go to plays, we don't go on vacation."

It's an expensive sport that pays off only based on talent and grit. The National Little Britches organization has grown 20 percent over the past year, President Jodi Stoddard said. The nonprofit organization annually provides $300,000 in scholarships.

"These kids are working way harder outside the arena than the 30 seconds of glory they get inside the arena," said Stoddard, whose seven children are all fourth-generation rodeo participants.

The spirit of horse rodeos, Laura said, is about family. If your horse sprains an ankle, another family will share theirs.

"That's just how most people roll," Laura said.

Natalie Daher • 612-673-1775