Martha Angelone is making breakaway headlines after securing the 2022 WPRA Breakaway Roping World Championship, but her younger sister Sarah boasts World Champion honors already.
Fresh off of clinching her WPRA all-around world championship in Waco, Texas, Sarah headed to Fort Worth for the $10,000-added Charlie One Horse Cowgirl Gathering Open Team Roping on Nov. 11, 2022.
Her hot streak from Waco continued at Cowtown Coliseum. The 23-year-old won the average with a total time of 30.74 seconds on four head, with partner Jessy Remsburg on the heel side. All in all, Sarah pocketed $5,065 aboard A Lil Cash For Lacy, a 2017 mare she calls “Lacy.”
“She was a reiner that came from Tom and Mandy McCutcheon as a 3-year-old,” Sarah said. “I started and finished her.”
Sarah prefers to stay close to home at jackpots and train horses instead of spending her days chasing ProRodeo dollars like her sister. She has nearly mastered the art of balancing her training days with competition days, evident in her success on her pair of 5-year-old breakaway and team roping horses used at the Cowgirl Gathering.
“When I’m riding younger horses I really try to remind myself to have patience and remember it is always a process and takes time,” Sarah said. “On my finished horses I have to remind myself to just go rope for me and trust that they will do their job.”
“It’s easy,” she continued. “[Martha and I] can nominate anything we go to and accumulate points. They also give us so many opportunities to rope for so much money. It’s amazing to see women get to rope for $60,000 for winning an event (at the WCRA’s Women’s Rodeo World Championship).”
The Angelone family knows firsthand what the WCRA can do for their careers. Martha won that $60,000 check at the WRWC in May 2022, and left the event with a totaled $70,900 while Sarah cheered her on.
And, though Sarah is well aware of the opportunities provided by the WCRA, she also knows there’s a learning curve that accompanies the association’s rules and structure.
How the WCRA Works
Simply put, the WCRA is an association that is willing to partner with other rodeo associations throughout the world to allow athletes to nominate and earn points. You can browse through the events listed on the site, or you can contact the WCRA to provide information about an event you are attending so that it can be added to the list and open for nominations. A classification system is in place based on the amount of money at stake, and certain events are worth more points than others. Once the contestant has selected their event segment (that is, which WCRA event they wish their points to count toward), they use the Virtual Rodeo Qualifier system to create an account with the WCRA. Depending on the event classification, nominations can range from $25 to a couple hundred dollars for large events (such as Cheyenne Frontier Days), which often feature multiple competition rounds and a lot of additional money.
WRWC Classification
One unique feature of the Women’s Rodeo World Championship is the segmentation of athletes in team roping, breakaway and barrel racing into Open and Challenger pools. The classification is determined by total career earnings and earnings within recent years, and the WCRA assists in monitoring earnings to ensure that the pools remain accurate and fair.
