Kyra Kauffman has trained every week since age 8 for a 15 second event. Kauffman is not a typical collegiate athlete; she has been doing rodeo and barrel racing for over 10 years. Even in her own family of adrenaline junkies, Kauffman strayed from the herd after watching the National Finals Rodeo on television as a little girl.

“My mom had horses before me. She did really prim and proper stuff like showing. She tried getting me into that and I hated it. It was absolutely not for me and when I told her, ‘oh, I want to do rodeo and barrel racing,’ she laughed in my face.”

Rodeo and barrel racing became serious for Kauffman at age 14 when she joined the Pennsylvania High School Rodeo Association. Last year, Kauffman was state champion. However, in her pursuit of passion, Kauffman often sacrificed a typical high school experience, especially due to the demanding responsibility of training, competing all over the country and caring for her horse, Sam, aka Corona Moonshine.

“There were a lot of sacrifices. During the weekend of prom, I went to the rodeo, came home, went to prom and went back to the rodeo. I was running on 2 hours of sleep. There definitely were a lot of things I missed out on in high school but I don’t think I’d change anything.”

In terms of the many fears and anxieties that drive most people away from high risk sports, Kauffman pays no mind to that.

“When I was younger, my coach used to tell me that I was holding the horse back and making it mad by holding on too tight. You’ve got to get over it and just let go. Now, the thing I get most nervous about is ‘am I going to do good? Am I going to hit a barrel?’ The speed used to scare me but now it’s nothing to me.”

After years of constant training, sacrifice, and work, Kauffman discussed what keeps her coming back to the sport: the rush.

“It’s addicting. Kind of like anything with adrenalin. My horse– when we first got him– was what we call an ‘unfinished horse’ so he wasn’t fully trained. Bringing him up to be a finished horse is the most rewarding and exciting part about this because you get to see and feel the progress of him getting better and better.”

When it comes to rodeo and barrel racing, Kauffman has also faced plenty of opinions about her sport, negative and positive.

“I just think there’s so much that goes into it that people don’t see. One of the biggest misconceptions that people have all the time is that the horse does all the work. Do not get me wrong, there’s a lot of horses out there that you could sit on and they’re gonna go do it. But if you can’t hold on then you’re not going to be able to do anything.”

In regards to her next steps in rodeo and barrel racing, Kauffman talked about her motivation to pursue a successful career that can support her passion while also remaining realistic about her future in the sport.

“I know as I get older, I probably won’t do as much or I won’t be as serious. But I also don’t think I could ever stay away from it forever.”