The 10-year-old bay roan mare who heeled Whitney DeSalvo to a $66,750 paycheck at the 2026 Premier Women’s Rodeo is at the vet fighting to save her right eye after taking a rope burn across the eyeball the day after the PWR finals at the Carbon Classic.
Cats Ginnin Lady—barn name Jolene—is the mare owned by DeSalvo’s pal Bentley Davis. DeSalvo, of Wilmar, Arkansas, partnered with Kenna Francis of Las Vegas, New Mexico, to stop the clock in 6.15 seconds in the clean-slate final round at Cowtown Coliseum on May 15.
The injury came the next day at the Carbon Classic when the rope popped off the steer’s feet.
“The honda didn’t hit her. It was when it come off—like the honda never even touched her—but it was a literal rope burn straight across her eyeball,” DeSalvo said. “You could see—it was the perfect width of a rope, like a perfect line across her eyeball.”
The mare panicked in the arena after the hit.
“She couldn’t see,” DeSalvo said. “She was running into people, like running into the fence and wouldn’t let anybody catch her. She was just panicked. I immediately put a bunch of stuff in it and doctored and put her in a stall at Billy Bob’s until we got done, and then they took her over there, dropped her off at Josh [Harvey’s]. I know it’s a freak deal, but I still just feel so bad.”
The mare is at Outlaw Equine in Decatur, Texas, getting treatment every four hours around the clock.
A Year to the Day
The eye injury comes almost one year to the day after the same mare came off the table from major colic surgery—also at Outlaw Equine.
“Literally, a year to the day of Friday night’s PWR short round was when she had her colic surgery,” DeSalvo said.
DeSalvo had returned home from the 2025 Premier Women’s Rodeo Finals when the mare colicked after Bentley ran 10 practice steers on her. After a local vet kept the mare overnight, DeSalvo hauled her to Harvey’s clinic at 6:30 a.m. for emergency surgery.
“He said it was the most weird deal,” DeSalvo said. “It looked like he found a twist in her gut, but that was it. He untwisted it. Everything was good. And then all of a sudden, he’s like, ‘Hey, I was packing her back up, and I found a piece of her small colon lodged under one of her ligaments.’ An arm length of her small colon died, and he had to cut it out. He said it was the most random thing, he didn’t even see it when they were taking it out. He found the spot, and then whenever he was making sure everything was right, putting it back in, he found it and it was completely dead, like, it was black. And so he cut it out and put it back together.”
The resection was a touch-and-go recovery.
“Josh calls her the million-dollar baby because she was expensive,” DeSalvo said. “It was expensive. We didn’t have insurance on her. But she’s worth it for sure.”
The Pedigree
Cats Ginnin Lady, foaled in 2016, is a daughter of Bet Hesa Cat. Her dam, Paddys Ginnin Lady, is by Paddys Irish Whiskey out of the Docs Starlight mare Valliant Gin.
She was bred by Burnett Ranches LLC of Guthrie, Texas, and acquired by Michael Drew Kennedy of Quitman, Arkansas—Davis’s grandfather—in 2022.
Per DeSalvo, the mare sold through the Four Sixes Sale as a 4- or 5-year-old cutting prospect and was purchased by Wes Newland before eventually landing with Kennedy.
Bentley’s Horse
Davis is the mare’s primary rider.
“He started riding her when he was probably like a 4. And he’s an 8 now,” DeSalvo said. “I mean, that’s his. Kind of the same deal as me and Becky.”
Becky is DeSalvo’s longtime 15-year-old heel horse, the mare she’s ridden since the mare was 5. DeSalvo and Davis swapped as of late, and it’s paid off.
“Before the BFI, I probably haven’t ever run six steers on her,” DeSalvo said. “I rode her to the BFI and that all-girl there in the BFI, and then I rode her over here. So I’ve roped on her three jackpots, but other than that, I’ve not roped on her hardly any.”
A Smooth Week
DeSalvo and Francis claimed their second PWR title together, adding $6,750 from a previous round to bring DeSalvo’s total event earnings to $66,750.
“There’s been times that we’ve made a good run and it felt like I was fighting for my life through the whole run,” “And then there’s been times that we’ve made a great run, and I turn around and watch it later, and I’m like, dang, that was actually pretty hard. And that’s kind of how our whole week felt like. It never felt hard. It always felt easy the whole time, and then whenever I’d go back and watch it, we actually got by some pretty tough steers that didn’t seem tough in the moment.”
