C
Casey Allen
Guest
Tricia Aldridge will step into the Thomas and Mack Center for the first time in 2025 ranked No. 11 in the WPRA world standings after earning $141,182 across 87 rodeos.
The Sanger, Texas, trainer reached her first NFR on the back of her 5-year-old stallion Adios Pantalones, finishing one of the most unconventional and self-made rookie campaigns in recent history.
Aldridge wasn’t raised in a rodeo family. She didn’t come from a barrel racing program, didn’t grow up hauling, and had no blueprint laid out in front of her. What she did have, from childhood on, was an unshakable pull toward horses. “I was the kid begging for a pony,” she said. “Nobody in my family rode. We didn’t have money. But if someone had a horse, I wanted to be on it.”
She learned by watching. She learned by trial and error. She took lessons wherever she could find them, starting with local playdays before spending time riding under reining and cutting horse trainers. “The lady I took lessons from did reining horses, so that’s where I learned body control,” she said. “I learned how to move one around, how to get one soft and thinking. That’s still the foundation of everything I do today.”
Without the means to buy expensive, made horses, Aldridge began purchasing weanlings and training them herself. “When you’re poor, you hedge your bets,” she said. “I couldn’t afford made horses, but I could afford babies. I bought a lot of them. And I messed up a lot of them. That’s how you learn. You learn what never to do again.”
Over time she brought along a handful of horses that helped shape her horsemanship: Susie Has A Penny, Vibrant Rose, Casino Stinson, Three Times The Fury, “Sway,” and a particularly meaningful gelding named Furytime, “Puma.”
“Puma was the horse that believed in me before I believed in myself,” she said. “He carried me through a lot of the moments where I wasn’t sure if I was good enough.”
Aldridge trained horses while working full-time in construction engineering. Rodeo was not part of her lifestyle. “I’d honestly be surprised if I had entered ten rodeos in my life before this year,” she said. When she finally committed to a season, she didn’t quit her job — in her words, “I just stopped going.”
Her original goal was modest: break into the Top 30 and learn the system. “I gave myself two years,” she said. “My whole plan was to make mistakes the first year, learn the ropes, and maybe have a real shot the second year.”
Her year did not follow that plan.
The difference was a stallion she raised, trained and believed in long before the rest of the industry knew his name.
Adios Pantalones, a 2019 stallion by Tres Seis and out of French Bar Belle, was a weanling when Aldridge bought him. She documented his training publicly from the beginning. “I recorded everything,” she said. “Every single thing I did with him. I wanted transparency. I wanted to show that you don’t have to hide the process.”
He was talented early but needed time. Aldridge was patient, letting him grow into himself. He went on to win futurities, hold his own against tough aged-event fields and eventually surpass the QData all-time earnings record for barrel racing stallions. Still, she wasn’t sure how he would respond to the rodeo environment.
Her first few rodeos with him showed her enough. “He just always shows up,” she said. “Nothing scares him. Nothing rattles him.”
Her season carried them west, where a run in California delivered a severe setback. Adios caught his nose on a panel while loading, breaking the cartilage under the skin. He ran anyway. “It was awful,” she said. “He was bleeding on the inside. But that horse never stops trying.”
Tricia Aldridge wins Section 1’s qualifying round at Days of ’47 | Ric Andersen/CBarC photo
With vets helping her manage the swelling and airflow issues, she kept him feeling confident and comfortable while continuing to enter strategically after he had some healing time. That strategy became essential as she navigated the ProRodeo road for the first time. She credits World Champion barrel racer Fallon Taylor for helping her learn which setups were appropriate for a 5-year-old stallion. “Fallon told me where not to go, and that helped me so much,” she said. “I had no experience with rodeo. I didn’t know any of the ins and outs.”
Aldridge is direct about being an overthinker. “If I had a bad run, I’d give myself eight hours — usually the drive to the next rodeo — to think about it,” she said. “Then I had to get out of my feelings and go on to the next one.”
What she didn’t have was outside support. She wants that known clearly, to serve as an inspiration to others with big dreams. “I did it all myself,” she said. “I didn’t have anyone funding this. No sponsors. No financial backers. It was all me. I want people to know you can get here that way.”
Her approach to entering was conservative and targeted. She chose rodeos based on setups she believed would fit Adios, hauling when she could, resting him when she needed to and accepting that her experience gap meant she would make mistakes. But the mistakes never derailed the season — the horse kept bringing her back into the standings.
By late summer, she realized an NFR qualification was no longer hypothetical. It was becoming likely. She kept her circle small, her schedule simple and her focus on keeping Adios mentally fresh. “I never wanted him to feel like this was pressure,” she said. “He’s just a baby. He’s five. I wanted it to feel like another run, every time.”
By the end of the regular season, she had entered 87 rodeos and earned $141,182 — enough to secure the No. 11 position in the world and her first trip to Las Vegas.
“Anyone can do this,” she said. “You don’t have to come from rodeo. You don’t have to have money. You just have to believe in it, speak it and work for it. That’s the truth.”
Her story — entirely self-made, entirely self-funded and built on a stallion she raised from a baby — stands out not for its glamour but for its grit. There is no shortcut in her timeline, no advantage, no inherited program, no financial backing. Just a woman who loved horses enough to build her own future from the ground up, one weanling at a time.
Alrdige plans to take Adios, and up-and-coming stallion, 4-year-old Truly Epic to NFR 2025. Stay tuned for all things NFR from BarrelRacing.com.
The post PROFile: The Tricia Aldridge Story appeared first on BarrelRacing.com.
Continue reading...
The Sanger, Texas, trainer reached her first NFR on the back of her 5-year-old stallion Adios Pantalones, finishing one of the most unconventional and self-made rookie campaigns in recent history.
Aldridge wasn’t raised in a rodeo family. She didn’t come from a barrel racing program, didn’t grow up hauling, and had no blueprint laid out in front of her. What she did have, from childhood on, was an unshakable pull toward horses. “I was the kid begging for a pony,” she said. “Nobody in my family rode. We didn’t have money. But if someone had a horse, I wanted to be on it.”
She learned by watching. She learned by trial and error. She took lessons wherever she could find them, starting with local playdays before spending time riding under reining and cutting horse trainers. “The lady I took lessons from did reining horses, so that’s where I learned body control,” she said. “I learned how to move one around, how to get one soft and thinking. That’s still the foundation of everything I do today.”
Without the means to buy expensive, made horses, Aldridge began purchasing weanlings and training them herself. “When you’re poor, you hedge your bets,” she said. “I couldn’t afford made horses, but I could afford babies. I bought a lot of them. And I messed up a lot of them. That’s how you learn. You learn what never to do again.”
Over time she brought along a handful of horses that helped shape her horsemanship: Susie Has A Penny, Vibrant Rose, Casino Stinson, Three Times The Fury, “Sway,” and a particularly meaningful gelding named Furytime, “Puma.”
“Puma was the horse that believed in me before I believed in myself,” she said. “He carried me through a lot of the moments where I wasn’t sure if I was good enough.”
Aldridge trained horses while working full-time in construction engineering. Rodeo was not part of her lifestyle. “I’d honestly be surprised if I had entered ten rodeos in my life before this year,” she said. When she finally committed to a season, she didn’t quit her job — in her words, “I just stopped going.”
Her original goal was modest: break into the Top 30 and learn the system. “I gave myself two years,” she said. “My whole plan was to make mistakes the first year, learn the ropes, and maybe have a real shot the second year.”
Her year did not follow that plan.
Along Came Adios
The difference was a stallion she raised, trained and believed in long before the rest of the industry knew his name.
Adios Pantalones, a 2019 stallion by Tres Seis and out of French Bar Belle, was a weanling when Aldridge bought him. She documented his training publicly from the beginning. “I recorded everything,” she said. “Every single thing I did with him. I wanted transparency. I wanted to show that you don’t have to hide the process.”
He was talented early but needed time. Aldridge was patient, letting him grow into himself. He went on to win futurities, hold his own against tough aged-event fields and eventually surpass the QData all-time earnings record for barrel racing stallions. Still, she wasn’t sure how he would respond to the rodeo environment.
Her first few rodeos with him showed her enough. “He just always shows up,” she said. “Nothing scares him. Nothing rattles him.”
Her season carried them west, where a run in California delivered a severe setback. Adios caught his nose on a panel while loading, breaking the cartilage under the skin. He ran anyway. “It was awful,” she said. “He was bleeding on the inside. But that horse never stops trying.”
Tricia Aldridge wins Section 1’s qualifying round at Days of ’47 | Ric Andersen/CBarC photo
With vets helping her manage the swelling and airflow issues, she kept him feeling confident and comfortable while continuing to enter strategically after he had some healing time. That strategy became essential as she navigated the ProRodeo road for the first time. She credits World Champion barrel racer Fallon Taylor for helping her learn which setups were appropriate for a 5-year-old stallion. “Fallon told me where not to go, and that helped me so much,” she said. “I had no experience with rodeo. I didn’t know any of the ins and outs.”
Aldridge is direct about being an overthinker. “If I had a bad run, I’d give myself eight hours — usually the drive to the next rodeo — to think about it,” she said. “Then I had to get out of my feelings and go on to the next one.”
What she didn’t have was outside support. She wants that known clearly, to serve as an inspiration to others with big dreams. “I did it all myself,” she said. “I didn’t have anyone funding this. No sponsors. No financial backers. It was all me. I want people to know you can get here that way.”
Her approach to entering was conservative and targeted. She chose rodeos based on setups she believed would fit Adios, hauling when she could, resting him when she needed to and accepting that her experience gap meant she would make mistakes. But the mistakes never derailed the season — the horse kept bringing her back into the standings.
By late summer, she realized an NFR qualification was no longer hypothetical. It was becoming likely. She kept her circle small, her schedule simple and her focus on keeping Adios mentally fresh. “I never wanted him to feel like this was pressure,” she said. “He’s just a baby. He’s five. I wanted it to feel like another run, every time.”
By the end of the regular season, she had entered 87 rodeos and earned $141,182 — enough to secure the No. 11 position in the world and her first trip to Las Vegas.
“Anyone can do this,” she said. “You don’t have to come from rodeo. You don’t have to have money. You just have to believe in it, speak it and work for it. That’s the truth.”
Her story — entirely self-made, entirely self-funded and built on a stallion she raised from a baby — stands out not for its glamour but for its grit. There is no shortcut in her timeline, no advantage, no inherited program, no financial backing. Just a woman who loved horses enough to build her own future from the ground up, one weanling at a time.
Alrdige plans to take Adios, and up-and-coming stallion, 4-year-old Truly Epic to NFR 2025. Stay tuned for all things NFR from BarrelRacing.com.
The post PROFile: The Tricia Aldridge Story appeared first on BarrelRacing.com.
Continue reading...