Championship-bound
Rylea Fabrizio: Last year was a really good year for me. I was just college rodeoing in the beginning of the year, but at Reno, at the invitational, my mom and I won fifth, and we won the short-round. I don’t even remember how much we won, but Reno was really good to us. Then, me and Lorraine won the second round together out there, so, every time me and Lorraine roped together, it’s like we clicked. And then I won the Spicer Gripp Memorial breakaway, which was in August, so it had just been a really blessed year for me.
Getting in the Game
Lorraine Moreno: I was roping pretty good and practice felt good and everything, but that week didn’t start very good. It was off to a bad start. I was roping all right, just couldn’t put anything together to win anything. But I knew I just needed to try to catch, rope, and be consistent to win something. Normally, if you can be consistent in that roping and just catch them all, you’re going to win a check.
Rylea: Me and Lorraine have roped together for probably two or three years now in the all-girls and stuff. It seems like every time we usually get in there for some kind of check. If it’s either a good average check or a round check, we get something out of them and we have fun roping together. We both like to not back down and put some pressure on them, so it’s fun.
Out-Roping the Competition
Rylea: This sounds crazy, but my family has gone to US ropings for I can’t even name how many years, and that was actually the first US roping I’d ever won. So, it was obviously my goal: I went in there wanting to win it. And, I had really good confidence with my partners. Both me and Lorraine and me and mom had won at the previous all-girl, which was Reno before that, so I just had a lot of confidence in my partners, and me and Lorraine had some good luck and it all worked out.
Lorraine: I’d roped with all the good headers and had good headers, and I knew if I just did my part, we’d do okay. Whitney (DeSalvo), Jessie (Remsburg), they all rope good, so I just had to do my job to beat some of those tough girls. They rope really well, and I just knew I had to do the best I could to come to be on top.
Utilizing the Win
Lorraine: It helped me. From that win, I was doing good and I just kept winning for a while. And I also got my number bumped. I was a straight-6, and then I went to 6-Elite, and now I’m a 7.
Rylea: The win gave me a little bit of a confidence boost, to know that me and Lorraine can compete. My horse, Stiletto—she’s 16 hands—she was younger and I won it on her, so that was good. It’s a good feeling to win a big roping on a horse you raised and my parents trained that is just as competitive as all the others. At the beginning of the year, Stiletto was actually hurt, so I haven’t gotten to jackpot as much this year, but come Reno, me and Lorraine won fifth out there this past summer, so, it didn’t seem to slow us down.
Roping Forward
Rylea: I’ve been at home amateur rodeoing here in Colorado, so that’s been fun, getting to mixed team roping and stuff and those have been good, so I’ve just been trying to keep my spot heading into the finals here in [early October,] so that’s been good, and then just getting prepared to go back to Oklahoma City [later in October], so it’s been a good year.
Lorraine: I’ve been going to a lot of World Series ropings. I think I’ve only been to one US roping this year, and I placed at the one, but mainly I’ve been to a bunch of World Series ropings, and I’ve been doing pretty good, so hopefully that keeps going. I’ve already qualified for Vegas like five times, but I’m only going to enter two or three times. In the #13, #12, and then I’m going to head (5-Elite) one in the #11.
I’m not going to Oklahoma because they capped the all-girl at a 10, so I can’t really heel in it, so I think I’m just going to skip out. Plus, I started radiology school on Aug. 27, so I think you won’t see me for a little while until I finish.
