June 3, 2025 • 46 mins
In Episode 77 of Scoreboard, Chris Titley sits down with Emily Howkins—former jockey turned rodeo competitor—to talk about grit, guts, and chasing adrenaline across wildly different arenas.
Emily opens up about her early days growing up in Central Queensland, riding trackwork before sunrise and pushing her body to make weight—until one day, she couldn’t anymore. That’s when she found rodeo.
Now driving heavy machinery by day and saddling up by night, she shares what it’s like to compete in the male-dominated world of Ranch Saddle Bronc and how she handles injury, and why it’s camaraderie—not glory—that keeps her going.
Her Scoreboard Moment? Learning to listen to her body and pivot without losing her identity.
🐎 From silks to spurs—this is a story about dusting yourself off and getting back in the ring (or chute).
📌 Subscribe for more stories from every corner of the game.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
From the arena to the front office, this is Scoreboard.
I'm Chris Tipley, and each episode brings you stories from
the game of sport, where mindset, money and meaning shape
what comes next. Athletes, coaches, owners and
business leaders unpack the moments that matter, because the
Scoreboard isn't just about winning.
It's about life beyond the game.Now let's get to this week's
(00:23):
episode. Hi, it's Chris Titley here.
And on today's episode of SchoolBoard, the podcast, I'm joined
by Emily Hawkins in person in Brisbane.
And what is a beautiful day, 2ndof June, a little bit overcast,
I suppose. Emily, welcome to Brisbane.
Hey, thanks. Emily, you're not from Brisbane.
You came to Brisbane this morning.
Tell us about your your day so far.
(00:45):
Yeah, we actually come from workthis morning, went to a
practise, practise bronc riding day there and yeah, this morning
we come across to be You're on the podcast.
And, and this is a little bit ofa milestone moment for you, your
first ever podcast. Yeah, first one, how are you
feeling having me? Yeah, a little bit nervous, but.
(01:05):
It'd be fine. It'd be fine, right?
And you've do you listen to podcasts?
Yeah, I do actually. What's your favourite podcast?
At the moment, this one. Which episodes?
Come on, I'll test. You here?
Oh my favourite one. I like some Cal Brunton's one of
his. Confidence.
Oh yes, Yep. Resonate a lot with what he has.
To say the attitude is altitude.Yeah, the attitude.
I love it. Yeah, put your swag in the bag,
(01:27):
Cal. Yeah, no, he was great.
He was it was a bit of a an interesting podcast that one
because I grew up watching Cal on TV and he was always beating
the Brisbane Bullets playing forthe Perth Wildcats.
And I just sort of half didn't like him.
But then knowing what a such a legend he was and at the game at
the at the time and what he's done for Australian basketball
was great to actually finally meet him in person.
(01:48):
As is you right. And thanks for coming in all the
way now, Emily Hawkins, not a overall household name globally,
but maybe in the future. What's your sport?
Tell us about it. Well, I'm a women's range prompt
writer. It's traditionally American
sport but we're trying to bring it to Australia so we can have
(02:10):
more women get involved and get to the main.
Main finals is in America and weget to have a have a team over.
There ranch bronc riding, that'sthe profession, that's the
sport. Yeah, compared to what some
might think of bull riding, right?
Yeah, So in Australia there's a few, few different rodeo events
(02:31):
with the rough stock. There's well bull riding.
What you see with the PVR, we have saddle bronc that you see
Damien Brennan and most men rideat every rodeo bareback, which
is a wild ride with a rigging structural horse like a suitcase
handle. But yes.
And then we also have Ladies Ranch front ride, which in
(02:52):
America it's not ladies, it's men and women.
But in Australia, it's more, more for the women, yeah.
Excellent. And so ranch bronc riding and
fabulous to get you. You're my first ever ranch bronc
riding professional coming on here.
What's the where, where did it come from and when did you kind
of realise that there's a sport here?
(03:12):
And actually, I'm interested. Well, the sport, how it started
for me is a friend of mine. I met her one New Year's and we
got to chatting and she said, oh, I'd really like to try
bronch riding. And I said, oh, I've been to a
couple of schools, Saddle Bronx schools.
(03:33):
And she's like, really like we should, we should do that.
And so got to go to the contact with Ken Reid and Gatton.
And after a few goes of that we were we're talking, we both
reckon we like this TV show thatwas in America.
It was called Cowgirls and it was just women riding ranch
brunks and starting out and following a tour with them on
(03:55):
it. And we thought that'd be such a
good idea to actually when I start seeing it for the first
time, I thought our two handed bronc riding just that looks
crazy like that's not for me. But she really wanted to give it
a try. And I thought, let's do it.
And we, we organised A practise day and we bring the Western
saddles and wrote in them. And yeah, that would just come a
(04:17):
little bit naturally. And I thought, oh, well, this
is, this is what I want to do. And she, she actually contacted
the guy that ran that TV show orran the ran the association that
the TV show was following. And instead of getting a reply
like, oh, when, whenever you're in America, come and see us,
they said, oh, like you, you're in Australia like we should, we
(04:38):
should add you guys to our worldfinals.
Like, let's get this happening. That's kind of the birth of
branch from in Australia. Right.
So you're not only part of the sport that is sort of an
existing sport globally, but nowyou're bringing, as you said,
you're bringing it to Australia as a, as a like a recognised
sport or adding Australia into aworld champ.
That must make you feel pretty proud.
(04:59):
Yeah, I'm pretty proud of it. And it definitely gives you
somewhere to go. Like you're when you you ride
with the boys in saddle bronc and that's fine.
But yeah, they they welcome you except you, but you're not one
of the boys. And you, it's really hard to win
one of them events as a female rider.
It's probably not impossible, but it's definitely hard.
(05:21):
You got to work a lot harder. It's nice to have your own
division and your own little thing to go chase together and
travel together like all the girls.
We just seem to have the best time on our little rodeo trips
together. Yeah, that's brilliant.
And and in terms of like gettingit a, a, a brand awareness and
getting it out there in Australia, how's it been?
(05:42):
What's been the hurdles and what's been the been?
Steady, I guess at the start a lot of people were questioning
like why the hell do these girlswant to ride frogs and wondering
if we were what, what was our motives behind wanting to ride?
I guess there was a lot of that and thinking are very
traditional, like our girls don't ride bucking horses.
And I guess you just have to prove a little bit that you do
(06:05):
want to be there and you deserveto be there and you're not being
silly and not taking it seriously like it it is.
It is a serious sport and you could get hurt and we all know
that now. Yeah, no, for sure.
And we'll touch on that in a second, but I'm just trying to
think in my, in my brain about newer sports that the people
sort of started off with a little bit of silliness.
(06:26):
And one of them that really comes to mind was 2020 in
cricket, whereby the first few games is like, oh, it's just a
muck around game and muck around, etcetera.
And you look Fast forward like 20 years, like it's big, huge
business now and people have taken it seriously and, and
whatnot. And, and little things like
paddle ball and pickle ball are rising as well.
So you're kind of competing withthat.
But now knowing that what there's World Championships,
(06:47):
there's events, there's organised events, must feel good
that there's good participation or hopefully steady
participation in the sport. Yeah, it's starting to grow.
It's getting a lot of interest, a lot of traction and and there
are a lot more rodeo committees wanting to add it to their,
wanting to add it to their programmes.
And so it's really exciting for us.
It's now we have a few hurdles with insurances and getting into
(07:12):
different rodeos and bigger rodeos, but we're working on
those. What's the what's the the
ultimate skill or I suppose you know, mental skills and physical
skills to be a good bronc rider?I guess the mental toughness is
probably the a huge one that will get you get you further
than anything, but that is also something you can train.
(07:35):
And I guess being very being physically fit and strong,
especially as a female, like youhave a lot more to work on to
get to writing fitness. Yeah.
And what sort of like for you, like the training programme and
give the listeners a bit of an insight into behind the scenes
(07:55):
what a training programme looks like.
For me it's a mixture of strength and cardio, more like
CrossFit style functional training, a lot of mobility and
a lot of time on the spare boardwith drills and skills just
working on little things. Muscle memory and visualisation
(08:17):
is a huge 1. You just got a picture.
The perfect ride. And almost by the time I get
onto a horse I'm just, I'm over it.
I've already thought about it somuch that I've rode it a million
times over that I'm kind of bored with it by the time I
actually get there. Yeah, and the and the scoring
and the winning and how does that all work?
Scoring is 2 judges and there's it's out of 100 points all up.
(08:42):
So 2 judges scored 25 points each to the rider and the horse.
Right, so there's a bit of. Out of 50.
And when it comes to the horse, so you do you work with a
particular horse or do you kind of just get randomly allocated?
No, it's. It's just a draw, random
allocation, like it's you put your name in for the entries and
(09:04):
they'll just draw a horse out ofa hat or however they do it.
Now you find out on the day, or sometimes it's a shoot draw,
they give you a shoot number, you stand there and whatever
horse runs in, that's what you, your partner, Yep, for the ride.
And is there such thing as a perfect hundred?
Not yet, no. No.
Is it? Is it a Unicorn?
Does it exist? Like in terms doesn't exist?
(09:27):
No, no. So what do you aim for when you
go out and you're visualising 1000 times before you come on to
your thing? What are you aiming for?
What sort of score are you aiming for?
Yeah, you're aiming for 100. You're right.
Well, they call it right. B, 9090.
B 90 OK for you and you've you won with 90 before.
I think the closest I've got to 88.
(09:47):
OK. And 88 was the win.
Yeah, 88 was the win. Yeah, right.
OK. And So what do they charge the
horse on? The horse they judge like how
hard he barks, obviously if he'sgot a good pattern, if he's a
big strong horse and holds his hold, holds his pattern and for
the duration of the 8 seconds and.
(10:12):
Yeah, how long does 8 seconds feel like?
Feels like 20. Does it?
Yeah, Yeah, Yep. And then you like go back and
like you could probably. I mean, I used to be a like a
quasi amateur sprinter and I remember it was sort of like 10
or, you know, 11 seconds probably in 100 metres.
But it felt like, you know, you're preparing so long for
(10:33):
this kind of race and then it's over and you're like, but you
can sort of visualise everythingand tell a story about 8 seconds
or 10 seconds running. But yeah, 11 seconds in running,
going like I could, I could write a novel on that, that, you
know, even though it goes too quickly.
Start out that 8 seconds is justa blur like and.
Then I get out and then the competitor here and this and
(10:54):
that and then I go forward. Then they go and then they went
ahead and, you know, and you're like, wow, that was only 11
seconds or whatever it might be,right?
Yeah. And you can do that, right?
Yep. And do you remember, do you have
your, your, your favourite type of, you know, when you got that
eighty, Bob, was it 88? Your high school?
Yeah, Yeah. Do you remember that?
Yeah, I do. I I remember that.
Go on, give us a bit of a commentary on that.
(11:14):
That, that right, even just the lead up to that ride, there was
a it was a shoot draw and there was a heap of horses there and
there was a an Appaloosa horse everyone wanted and we were all
like, my friend already sort of had dibs on that one.
So I sort of said, oh, what's this one here?
And they said, oh, she bucks good.
And I just thought, Oh, well, you want the horse that bucks
(11:35):
the best. But this was early days and we
thought like, maybe you don't want the one that bucks real
good. But anyway, I just put my stuff
there and got ready and yeah. And it bucked out and it just,
she was, she was pretty rank. And yeah, it sort of come out
and I just remember like, oh, I haven't fallen off yet.
(11:56):
And she circled around a little bit and and it felt like the
longest time ever that I was on this was packet.
The pickup man's coming in. And I'm just thinking like, Get
Me Out of here. But the horse was spinning, so
it was very hard for the horse to pick up me and to come in
close enough to get me off. And she finally straightened up
a little bit and he come in and I got off, Yeah.
(12:17):
There you go. There's a lot more of an 8
seconds commentary there. It was awesome.
And Emily, before this podcast, we talked about injuries.
You've gone through one yourself.
Myself, I, I slipped a disc in my back and I, I think that was
more from my job as an operator in a dozer all day, sitting sort
of perched up there and putting pressure on my back and.
(12:38):
There must be a lot of muscles that you don't realise that
exist in your body when you're doing bronc ride training that
you have to kind of train, as you said, in muscle memory.
Yeah, I think the one muscle I find if I fall off pretty
quickly, I'm not very sore like I'm Jarred off from hitting the
ground. But if you cover 8 seconds, my
forearms, yes, the sorest they've ever been.
(13:00):
And do you get the, what's it called, the delayed onset thing
like the day, the day later? Two days later and you're like,
can't open your hands. Oh yeah, Like, can you open this
bottle of milk for me? No.
And you speak of of of the, the the disc in the back very
painful. Did you end up having back
spasms? Yeah, I did actually.
I had backs. I'm trying to sleep was the
(13:20):
worst. Couldn't get comfortable any
direction and yeah, even just like you'd sit down for a while
and you have to stand back off and it's so hard to get back up.
It's it's I had it in late last year, which is horrible for your
43 year old with no core muscle,but you have to put your elbows
down on to get up a lot. I found on the bed and it's I
wouldn't wish on anyone but. We did tuck and roll to get out.
(13:44):
We did tuck and roll to get out and then they call it the socks
and jocks. Putting your socks and jocks on,
you could end up having like more spasms or more kind of like
painful lightning through your back.
And I'm sure there's people out there that have gone through the
the back spasms. But it's not just the however
long 2448 hours that you have this.
It's like the the muscles get shaken up for so long and that
(14:04):
sort of feel like an arthritisy pain took.
A long time it was my hip, mainly my my hip and leg were
just in pain all day and I just was like, this is horrible.
I had to, I went through finals with that.
I, I wrote, I took as many painkillers as I could to get
through that. And I probably didn't ride my
best because I wasn't very fit and I couldn't train because my
(14:27):
leg was giving me trouble. And I did what I could.
And afterwards I did took I think maybe 8 months off.
Eight months Wow OK that seriousyou know in terms of the ongoing
pain he. Just wouldn't stop and there was
nothing. I was going to physio massage,
nearly getting an exorcism just to try and get something to
(14:48):
happen. And doctors were like, oh, you
don't need surgery yet. Wow.
And then so you talked about championships there and you
talked about the relationship with the the World
Championships. Did you want to talk about your
progress, I suppose a couple of years ago to get into the World
Championships in 23 and then it also to 24?
(15:08):
Yeah, well, actually qualified before COVID and well, COVID
stopped one year stopped 2020-2021 I think it was still,
it was still stopped and we couldn't get much done there.
And then 2022 I I could go and but I didn't want to get a COVID
(15:30):
jab. Yes, Yep.
Yeah, various travel restrictions and things like
that, Yeah. Didn't want that and yeah, so I
couldn't go, couldn't travel without it.
And so 2023 I'd re qualified. We had another year and I that
was probably our biggest year for women's range from.
(15:51):
Coming out of the back of all the COVID things.
COVID and just getting getting it off the ground here and we
went from 2 events a year to 12 that year, I think, yeah.
In Australia, yeah, right. And is it, was it a state by
state thing or was it more like a national event?
10 * a year or. More it was more Queensland
because most of our writers at the time were based in
(16:13):
Queensland and our connections and contacts with rodeos in the
area were around here and yeah. Yeah, right.
OK. And so then you is there a
qualifying thing to get to? The sorry we collected out of
all those rodeos for the year, if you every win scored your
points, so you accumulated the points for the year and then the
(16:35):
top three, well top two at that stage, top 2 got to go to
America. Yeah, right.
OK. And Emily, to run an event,
obviously it costs money and there's horses and Bronx
involved and there's events likein terms of a space and
officials and things like that. Like are you part of that as
well? Are you driving all that or that
(16:57):
associations are going? Actually, we're all high swan.
Yeah, we do it a little bit different.
We, you've got to obviously finda sponsor for the prize money,
but we find rodeos in the area that have the right insurance
that will let us ride and, and sort of pitch them that we want
to. This is our event, this is who
we are. This is what we're working
(17:18):
towards, obviously collecting points for America and get into
their rodeos. And usually it's a contract, a
stock contractor that owns the horses that sort of support us
as well. And yeah, we've been, we end up
in their rodeos and money. So it's just the yeah,
sponsorship. And on that sponsorship, I mean,
(17:38):
how important is have you had some good sponsors along the way
and people that have really kindof went right?
I'm part of this. I'm happy to be a part of.
That yeah, we've had some reallygood ones along the way, just
like for the prize money of the events, which is always grateful
for that. Yep.
And, and in terms of like, are they local businesses or are
they kind of like national brands?
Or yeah, usually just local business case.
(18:00):
Yeah. I was going to say while while
we're here and and have a hopefully get a growing audience
plug out there for some nationalbrands maybe.
Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah.
And your trip to America, you talked about that and getting
and that's where that initial discussion came from.
Was that right, adding Australia?
Yeah, yeah, we got the got our spot in the in the invited to
(18:21):
the world finals and now we justhad to get girls ready and
qualify, which was really exciting.
I think this year we had 2020 girls compete 20 yeah this
season. That's awesome, don't you think?
Yeah, I think it was great. I think it's it's really good to
see it growing and there's a lotmore trying to come along.
(18:42):
But yeah, the 2023, I think there was, I think there was 10
of us 10:10 And yeah, it's grown.
And where are the championships and when are they in the?
US at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming in July, end of July.
Yeah, OK. And you've been over a couple of
(19:03):
times. You want to describe the whole
event from start to finish. It is surreal.
It's, yeah, one of like the whole one of highlights of my
life getting to go right there. Because I always felt if you
went down the path of a saddle bronc rider, you, you as a
female, you probably will never make it to any big stages like
(19:26):
that. Like it'd be a once in a million
chance of females getting that far in saddle bronc, but in the
ranch. Wrong.
It was an amazing experience to be able to ride on a big stage
like that in your own sport. Yeah, so it's like a pinch of
yourself moment combined with a bit of nervousness.
Yeah, it was actually, it was strange.
(19:46):
It was one of those times I wasn't nervous because I just
thought, well, is what it is andI'm here and I just want to give
it all I got. So it was, it was actually
really good. The crowd, the amount of people
there is like the most I've everseen in a stadium.
I'm pretty sure it's like 30,000. 30,000, probably even
more. That's unbelievable.
(20:06):
Numbers wrong but. Yeah, but I mean like the the
the actual noise, the level of the.
Atmosphere, just the the people that you're getting ready with
on in the bird cage is there's like the best of the best
Cowboys in the world under theregetting ready and you're just
there ready next to them. It's yeah, it's pretty amazing.
And in terms of the the contingent that went over, how
(20:27):
many Australian girls went over in 23 and 24?
23 there was two of us, and 24 they added three of us.
Right. And how many girls are there
that compete in the overall world?
Championships, I think there's, I think they fill the shoots, I
think there's 10. Ten OK, and then you've got your
(20:51):
out of 100 and you've got like can't be just one.
What do you call it? Bronc ride?
How many are there that you get to do in the world champs?
It's for the world finals. It's it's 2 days.
Two days, Yep, Yep. OK, Yep.
And then in 23, you want to talkabout your experience and then
leading into 24. Yeah, 23.
(21:12):
I'd like to say 23 was probably my, my warm up year.
Yeah, yeah. So 23 was the first year we had
like a fair amount of rodeos in Australia and got to.
Go over there and yeah. Yeah, 23 was a good year.
(21:35):
We got to go over and it was ourfirst, my my first year over the
the two other girls went the year before when I couldn't go
with COVID 23 was my first year and it was, it was I loved it
over there. It was a big eye opener and and.
Came back in 24 again one of theone of the experiences.
Again, the first year I, I drew a, a softer horse for the first
(21:58):
round and he sort of run off with me and I got a reride.
And my reride horse was meant tobe in the, in the shootout, the
end of the Saddle Bronx shootout, which is a bit more
hectic. And the one of the shootout
horses jumped into the racetrack.
And so they got me to sit on my horse and just wait there.
(22:19):
And I think hindsight, I should have just got off this horse and
got like kept myself active and I'm just sitting there for maybe
2 minutes. I just got really loose and lost
my sort of fire and they sort ofcalled for me to go a few times.
So I not only had every time, they're like, you gotta hurry
up, hurry up. And there's there's a lot of
(22:40):
stress, a lot of pressure. And yeah.
And by the time I come out of this shoot, I was just so loose
and just the horse threw me. Yeah, right.
I mean, that's, I mean there's all different types of emotions
that you feel when you you jump on and obviously you know, the
sometimes out of your control and sometimes in your control,
I'd imagine. Yeah, they, they sort of push
like, oh, girls, hurry up. Don't be slow.
Girls need to hurry up. And none of us stopped moving.
(23:03):
Like we're all there still working.
And they're like, hurry up, you need to hurry up.
And you know, I'm like, do they do this to the men too or just
ask us? We're girls.
And anyway, like even one of the, the second day's horse that
I got in my saddle was like slipped back a little bit and
they're like rushing us. And, and I was, I wanted to
(23:24):
change it. And I was like, you got to go.
You got to pull, you got to pullyour saddle down.
And I just stop it. Just just pull it tight.
Let's go. Yeah.
And so, yeah, I mean it was obviously the whole event is
something which is memorable andthe the networking and and also
like the the ability to kind of share common interests.
It's pretty cool, right? Yeah, yeah, Some of the you meet
(23:46):
girls from all over the world, like the 2023 finals.
I travelled with a girl from Belgium.
They had a European team there, so it was really cool to meet
her. And then we travelled to a few
different towns along the way and met like we met Rod Hay that
was an NFR like world champion for the Saddle Bronx in the day
and he was teaching a school. We met like other Cowboys from
(24:09):
all over the place. It was.
It was pretty cool. Yeah, awesome.
And you got the the bargain going, right. 23 wasn't the best
year personally from the actual competition point of view, but
let's go again in 24. Do you want to talk about 24?
Then 24 I think was like the year, my running and gunning
year 24, I'd won Australian champion here at home.
It was the first year we had a recognised title so that was
(24:33):
pretty special for me and then made World Finals and World
Finals I even though I had this back injury I still ended up
fourth in the world. That's amazing.
How does it feel when you say that now?
Yeah, I wish it was world champion, but anyway, it's still
(24:55):
pretty awesome to be able to saythat I got that achievement in
my sport. And how?
What was the results like? Were they pretty close?
Was there 1? Person there that was pretty
close. Yeah.
That all that it would have been, it would have been hard to
be a judge, I can say. Yeah, judging.
(25:16):
You landed with fourth in the world.
Yeah, of all the people in the world that do your sport, your
4th. That's Yeah.
And, and I'm, I'm assuming that there's a lot of competitiveness
in you and a lot of Oh yeah. And the.
Competitive from day one. And but then obviously the goal
is to be the number one in the world.
Yeah. And and as a goal, your goal
setup. Yeah, I think me myself, if if
(25:38):
I'm doing something I'm I don't want to do it just for fun.
Like if I try sport and and I like it, I want to be the, I
want to be the best. And what makes you become the
best in the world and what you do?
What do you reckon is it? Is it the a lot of mental
training, A lot of. Yeah, I think preparation and
leaving no stone unturned to trywork out how to get to what you
(26:00):
want. Yeah.
And have you worked that out yet?
Like are you on the on the path at the moment?
I think I am, yeah. It's just sometimes it takes a
little bit of luck to put it alltogether.
And a little bit of support as well and storytelling as well.
I mean, thanks for coming on andbeing the your your first
podcast. But like in terms of social
media and getting buy in and andgetting a support crew, that's
(26:22):
important. Yeah, it's definitely networking
is a huge thing for us and especially I've found the
hurdles of trying to promote ourour sport and get get it taken
seriously and getting those opportunities.
And it's almost now like you have a little bit of a, you've
(26:43):
had some achievements and you can build your personal brand to
make that work as a whole for your sport.
The rising tide lifts all boats.Now you've got an Instagram
handle girl on a bronc. Have you found on a bronc?
How have you found? And follow that please.
By the way, listeners out there,how have you found Instagram and
the social media style of like, actually I have to be a bit more
(27:04):
transparent. I have to be a little bit more
open, a little more present, a little more present.
Yeah, I. Feel like everything I post very
genuine to me. And a lot of people say that
they're like, oh, it's exactly you.
And I've always wanted it that way.
But yeah, at the start we were very, I'm not posting anything
on there. All these people put all this
stuff on social media and, and Ithink over the years I've
(27:26):
learned that it is now more of abusiness and that you do use it.
You do use it for those reasons and not just for the sake of
putting it on there. And then in your, I mean you've
got a personal goal which has been number one in the world.
But then as a sport here in Australia, what would be a goal
there? What would be a big hairy
audacious goal? A lot of our goals here are just
(27:49):
getting into bigger events and building, building our sport
here. Like a huge goal for me would be
work our insurances out to be able to compete at any rodeos
that wish to have us in their programme, which include like
pro rodeos here. We've come across a couple of
(28:09):
hurdles there and working on it,but yes, that'll definitely be
one of the big goals. And to get that goal over the
line, you need an insurance company that's flexible.
And then in terms of like, you know, understanding the sport,
A. Few things what what had
happened was depending on insurance companies that back
those associations, there's there's one that they will only
(28:35):
cover what's in the constitutionof the association and it's
hasn't really got to the point where we've got it into the
constitution or. Yep, OK.
So there, there's a lot more so.There's more progress to be made
in the sport A. Lot more progress to be made,
but. It's hard to kind of chicken in
the egg, you kind. Of in the paperwork side of
(28:55):
things. And then sometimes you don't
want to push that till we have more numbers and more
competitors to sort of make it worth its while.
Yeah, but it's definitely conversations we've been having
lately. Yeah, awesome.
And and then obviously there's there's location base as well
and rodeos etcetera. And how many rodeos in Australia
(29:16):
would there be every year? Rodeos all up.
I could tell you there'd be a lot.
There'd be, there'd be a lot. There's, there's probably 10
associations that run circuits through the year.
Yeah. So yeah, there'd be there'd be
plenty. And then in your, in terms of
your love of sport and where youcame to get involved in the in
the sport, how would you, what would you suggest to people that
(29:39):
are interested or young girls that are interested in the
sport, where do they begin? For anyone really that wants to
get into rodeo, it would be likefinding them contacts, going to
a, you can see it, find a school.
Like there's a lot of rodeo schools around networking with
like other Cowboys that you might know or where you've seen
it. You could go to your local rodeo
(29:59):
committee and ask like, do they know anyone point you're in the
right direction. Yeah, it's just go for it.
But I know some people that havejust lobbed up and into the
rodeo. Yeah, and what does, what does
like ranch bronc riding teach you in life, you think?
Ranch bronc riding definitely help with my confidence and like
(30:20):
sort of inspired me. Yeah, it's definitely built me
into a a more stronger, tougher person and and a lot more firm
with who I am. And you're competitive, right?
There's a trait I can see. And since just talking to you in
person, what other traits do youthink that you've got which
would make you, you know, fourthin the world and hopefully
(30:42):
become best in the world? This is a tricky question.
I know because it's your first podcast.
You probably don't like talking about yourself.
Like, oh, So what? What makes you strong?
What do you think you've got that others don't?
I feel like I can't say others don't have it, but it's it's I
see a lot of the good competitors have these traits
(31:03):
and I see a lot of people that have these traits that probably
haven't worked it out that they have them yet.
I always thought as having a lotof resilience and there's one
common thing I see a lot with a lot of the girls I'm friends
with, I ride, we all come from asimilar sort of back, back story
is we kind of were, we didn't fit in with the girly girls and
(31:25):
there was nothing wrong with them or wrong with that.
But we just, that wasn't our tribe and our crowd.
And we sort of felt like, oh, they're talking about hair
products and we're talking aboutsomething else.
We're talking about yeah, cars or something.
You're. Going to find your tribe a bit.
Rougher and then just kind of look at us like we're an alien
(31:46):
and I was always like, well, youdon't like me.
I don't like you either. Like I got bigger fish to fry.
And and then when when I do did meet this through this sport,
when I did meet these P these girls that all have this, this
rougher sort of lifestyle, we all just clicked.
And now it's almost funny. It's come full circle.
(32:08):
We weren't the we were the tomboy kind of girls that didn't
dress up that didn't. So and now we have our own girl
tribe and all of us are like dressing up and like getting
more like feminine. It's like this is crazy.
The full circle, but you know, the sport and sports find that
like I just through my interviewing of sports people
and people involved in sport, finding your tribe, finding your
(32:30):
crew, it's a it's an out it's something which you know it it
it's a sense of belonging, rightAnd that's hard in life, right
And I think and sharing common interests and that's why kids
play sport and win, lose or drawis sharing a common interest and
sharing something that you can talk about to someone as well,
because a lot of people again, as you mentioned is like, I'm
not going to talk about this. It's pretty boring.
(32:51):
I'd rather talk about that and all of a sudden you put in a
room where people talk about it.You're like, this is cool.
I can keep talking and keep learning from from people.
If you come across people in your crew or your tribe that
have been a bit sort of like, you know, really close friends,
but also been a little bit of like, you know, I suppose idols
or something which you kind of, you know, learn from them.
Yeah, so I on my journey of trying to find advice on how to
(33:16):
ride Ranch Rock because obviously when I started in
Australia, there wasn't any other one in Australia to learn
from. You could definitely learn a lot
of great mentors and friends that were saddle bronc riders
and offered so much advice therethat my real family that I think
of my closest people are when I reached out to, you know, I sort
(33:38):
of scanned Facebook and found like some of the best the world
champion range writers in America and I sent them a quick
message. And just through those first
couple of messages turned into agreat mentorship and friendship.
And now these people are some ofmy best friends and most
respected idols that I could ever come across.
(33:59):
And yeah, they've just welcomed me into the family.
Isn't that cool that you've donethe research?
Something I've never had before,someone take you under their
wing so seriously. And I think that's probably a
credit to what got me to where Iam today, is having someone that
put that time into me. And I was just nobody.
I was random on the Internet from Australia and yeah, and
when I went over there, actually, I went and stayed with
(34:20):
them. And yeah, so really good friends
think gonna be lifelong friends.That's amazing.
And, and, and full credit to youto kind of suss them out to go.
Actually, I wouldn't mind. I mean, people are human beings
and people ask me all the time about how I get people on this
podcast and I reach out to them on an email, LinkedIn and people
are people. They're like, yeah, sure.
That's great advice to anyone. It's like, if you want to know
(34:40):
something, well, what's the worst that could happen if you
send this email and be like, hey, like, I think could you
help me with this? If you've got time, like, I'd
appreciate that. And what are they going to do?
Not write back or say no. Really.
And what's that? And and that gives you what,
like 30 seconds of lost time in your life?
Yeah, like it's, it might get you something that you really
(35:00):
need and wants. Very like my, I think my life
motto is find out what it is that you want, you know, work
out what it is that you really want and then find a way to get
it. It's a tough one to work out
what you really want. I've battled with that myself a
lot, a lot of the times, like what's Nirvana look like?
What is it unachievable? Is it like, you know, and I've
(35:23):
had people talk about their stretch goals, their normal
goals, just like all these sort of things like I never hit my
stretch goal, but I get to 1/2 astretch goal, but I also hit,
you know, my short term goal. Do you sit down every year and
do your goals? I do it all the time.
I'm one of them. I'm an overthinker.
Everyone says you need to stop overthinking, but I think it's
(35:43):
my superpower because I think through every single small piece
of everything and overthink everything to I've got a very
clear path of where where I wantto go, what I need to do.
And the connection between your goals and your daily habits so
you can connect the 2 going. Actually, in my head, I'm doing
these reps because I want to. Yeah, they do.
(36:05):
Sometimes they ebb and flow, obviously have one of them days,
but yeah, most times it's everything's strategic and
getting to where I need to be, especially now with like
recovery and rehab and getting myself back to where back to
that. Competitive fitness has been a
long Rd. Yeah, no.
And so when you're in the physioor you're in the gym trying to
(36:27):
recover, does the inspiration ofyour goal.
Keep you going, especially thosedays we like, I don't feel like
doing anything and you just keepgot to remember.
And Emily, your, your goal is tobe #1 in the world.
And everything you do kind of somehow relates back to that big
hairy audacious skull, which is not so hairy and audacious
(36:48):
because you've been close in your fourth in the world.
I'm curious to know, do you switch off at all?
I did switch off for a bit, having my time off.
I think it is important to have a little bit of downtime away
from it because you're always switched on and you're always
hyper focused on it and going sohard that you can get burnt out.
(37:11):
And I like to think if you do have an offseason, like go spend
time doing other hobbies, other things, and I think you come
back wanting it twice as much. That's a good thing.
And what do you do to switch off?
Me. I like boxing.
Oh. Oh, so another sport.
Yeah, it's something I've, I've,I've wanted to get more into.
(37:31):
He's actually a pretty funny story for you.
So to keep fit for before I wentfor 2023, there wasn't much
practise. It wasn't many rodeos around and
I wanted to stay, I wanted to besharp to go to America.
I thought these is my first timeon these big horses.
They're a lot stronger than whatwe have.
I don't know if I'm ready, but I'm going to be fit.
(37:51):
And the where I started working had a boxing gym and I was like,
well, I should just go here and get a little bit fit.
And when I probably was in the gym for about a week and I've
seen advertisement for a cowboy boxing match, it was like a
charity event on the end of a boxing tournament and said it
(38:16):
was like, Yep, calling the Cowboys to come, come fight.
And we're like, oh, I seen a couple of friends that I knew
had no business being in the ring entering.
I thought it's one of them dealslike let's do this.
Like, I'll sign up. And I said to my coach, I was
like, do you think I could be ready for this?
And he was, he was like, he musthave misunderstood me and
(38:39):
thought that I said, oh, if I ifI worked hard, could I enter a
fight like this? And he said, yeah, yeah, if you
work really hard, like you can do it.
And I thought, Yep, sweet, I'm entering this.
So I've put my name down, signedup for it.
And he's seen the advertisement and seen I was in it.
And he's like, why would you do this without consulting me?
Like, that's not best of luck toyou.
(38:59):
Good luck with that. Like don't come back.
And then, yeah. And then he sort of got over it.
I said, but he told me to look at the message.
And then he was like, oh, I didn't mean that.
I didn't read it. And I was just like, OK, well,
I've entered now. And he's like, they'll you
better train because like, you're definitely not going to
be ready. But he he did.
(39:19):
He got me ready. He did as much as we could in
five weeks. And that that tournament was
actually the night I've the night before I was flying to
America. Right.
So the the scheduling wasn't great.
No, the schedule, but I thought while I'm in Brisbane, I could
do that at Pittsworth and and then get on a plane and fly to
America because I didn't realise, like how I didn't
(39:42):
realise the risks that could have been involved in that.
But I was like, I was fully confident.
I'm like, I got this. And then everyone was like, oh,
that girl that your opponent? She's she's a really good
fighter and she's yeah, you you want to have a handful there and
then. So I think that pushed me to
train a little bit harder. And yeah, so I actually second
round stoppage and yeah, I won the fight.
(40:06):
Wow awesome. OK so boxing is a little passion
project side hobby for. You that kind of definitely.
And and it's not it keeps you fit as well, obviously, and
keeps you mentally fit as well. And then you flew out to America
the next day. Yeah.
Wow. What a what a whirlwind 2448
hours for the week. That was a whirlwind.
It's like, what did you do last week?
Well, let me begin with the boxing match.
(40:27):
I. Think that's how I live my life
though, and a lot of people, a lot of my friends are like what?
Well, that's, that's awesome. Now we're going to go into a
couple of things with the Scoreboard Podcast 1 is your
scoreboard moment, which is a moment in your life which you
remember very, very vividly. And you may have already covered
it, but if you haven't, that's OK, where it's sort of like I
(40:47):
remember that moment. And then from then things
changed. One of my billboard moments was
maybe my first ever bronc ride. Yeah, it was first ever ranch
bronc ride. And it was kind of like the
deciding day that do I like thistwo handed style?
(41:11):
Is this really for me? Do I, do I want to do this?
And we rode and just happened todraw a really cool little horse
that was, he was really fun to ride and he made you look really
cool and he bucked and yeah. And and I stayed on and and I
thought like, Nah, I can do this.
I'm I'm a little bit good at this.
I can that just pushes you to keep going.
(41:32):
We get a little bit good at it. That was probably the the
ultimate thing that was like setit in motion of chasing Ranch
front riding. That's awesome.
And that's so vivid and clear that first one and and and the
memory is almost maybe feels like yesterday.
Yeah. The other question I ask is the
the all time favourite sporting moment, which is a bit of a
(41:55):
tricky 1. When you put on the spot about
what what you know, what is one of those moments where you go?
This is what sports all about. This is awesome.
I've got an all time favourite sporting moment.
It's it's most recent. There's probably two of them
that are very closely they they're close to me and close to
my heart with what I what my sport is.
(42:15):
And probably when Kyle Hamilton at the NFR in the bull riding,
he, he, it was really good. He won the world in the bull
riding. And then Damo Brennan coming
second in the world in the saddle.
Brunt like 2 Aussies over there killing it in rodeo sports and
rodeo field. So that's really cool.
(42:36):
And then we have us on the at the women's world final.
So yes. That's so good.
My favourite sporting moment. Yeah, and, and being in, you
know, in sport and knowing them and following in, I think that's
half the, the battle with some of the minority.
Broadly speaking, sports is the the people, the characters, the
storytelling behind it. And you're obviously knowing
them, following them, tracking their journey and people are
(42:57):
following you, which is great. And, and, and, and wanting to
you to prosper and be successfulin your story, which I think
obviously is, is what sports about as well.
Now a little bit of fun, our last podcast was John O Flegg
from Freshwater Strategy and andwhat they do is they do a lot of
expansion teams and get bids together.
(43:18):
And one of the most well known bids and close to home for John
O was getting the Red Cliff Dolphins into the NRL.
And currently with the Perth Bears and other teams that are
trying to get into expansion teams and getting stakeholders
together. So the scoreboard scramble is a
little game where we spell the word backwards, and it's related
to a previous podcast, so you can download both and listen to
(43:38):
both and listen to see what Jonosaid with his scoreboard
scramble. But the word I'm going to ask
you to spell backwards, and you've got 20 seconds to do it
so you can think about it is dolphins.
So I'm going to ask you to spellthe word dolphins, Emily,
starting now. SNIHP LOD.
(44:00):
I reckon you nailed it. Like I I don't have it here and
I'm just hoping that we can always get back and listen to
it. But yeah, dolphins backwards.
I'm not even going to try. I think ISNIHPLODI reckon that's
it. I reckon you got it in eight
seconds or 10 seconds. Now, if you didn't get it,
that's OK, because the listen's out there going.
On I thought it was going to be way.
(44:21):
Less. All right, You want a hardware
dude? No.
What about QLD? DN A LS N EE UQ.
I reckon that's it. You're good at this.
You can stay here all day. I'm going to you know, I've got
(44:42):
I've got one for you which I I'mgoing to cheat, right?
And I reckon the people out there now, I don't know how to
pronounce it correctly. Is it Cheyenne?
Is that where you the world sounds so Cheyenne.
Cheyenne, how you going with that one?
Oh no, you've got it written on your shirt.
So I'm going to cheat. So.
E and and EYEHC. Yep, you nailed it.
(45:04):
We can do this all day. Well done Emily, You've you've 3
from three I. Could have cheated on the
screen. Oh, I did, yeah.
Yeah, I did. But you have to look at it
backwards. I think that's reversed on the
video. Now I've got one final question
for you, some piece of advice for girls in sport and and also
wanting to, you've also talked about getting into your sport,
(45:24):
but also sport in general. What sport's given you that that
that nothing else has, obviously.
Confidence definitely given me confidence.
Yep. And then for someone that
there's that wants to potentially be as good as you,
what's the going back? The dream of Emily when she was
15. It may not have been this, but
what was the dream for you and what can you tell young girls to
(45:47):
dream dream about now? I think I've already like
covered my find out what it is that you want.
I think that's the most important step is find out what
your goals are. Yep.
And maybe that could be like playing as many sports as
possible or playing what's like getting out there. 15 It was
being a jockey, yeah. And that was my lifetime goal,
(46:10):
yeah. And yeah, it's now somehow ended
up as. Wrong.
And goals can change, right? And that's the thing, like, you
don't need to be kind of like, Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness,
I have to do this. I have to do that.
And then it's like, oh, I'm getting further and further
away. Why not just reset the goal into
something else? And it's a hard thing to do.
And I'm not saying it's just easy, but certainly, you know,
it's it's a hard thing from a person to kind of reset their
(46:32):
goals. But you've done it and now you
want to be best in the world. And I wish you all the best to
be best in the world at your sport.
Currently sort of 2024, fourth in the world.
Wish you all the best with your recovery.
Emily Hawkins, thank you so muchfor coming in and being part of
school board. Thanks for having me.
Congratulations on your first podcast.
You did amazing and and I'm looking forward to following
your progress, sharing your progress through school board,
(46:52):
the platform as well and, and looking forward to to following
you and keeping in touch. Yeah.
Thank you.
From the arena to the front office, this is Scoreboard.
I'm Chris Tipley, and each episode brings you stories from
the game of sport, where mindset, money and meaning shape
what comes next. Athletes, coaches, owners and
business leaders unpack the moments that matter, because the
Scoreboard isn't just about winning.
It's about life beyond the game.Now let's get to this week's
(00:23):
episode. Hi, it's Chris Titley here.
And on today's episode of SchoolBoard, the podcast, I'm joined
by Emily Hawkins in person in Brisbane.
And what is a beautiful day, 2ndof June, a little bit overcast,
I suppose. Emily, welcome to Brisbane.
Hey, thanks. Emily, you're not from Brisbane.
You came to Brisbane this morning.
Tell us about your your day so far.
(00:45):
Yeah, we actually come from workthis morning, went to a
practise, practise bronc riding day there and yeah, this morning
we come across to be You're on the podcast.
And, and this is a little bit ofa milestone moment for you, your
first ever podcast. Yeah, first one, how are you
feeling having me? Yeah, a little bit nervous, but.
(01:05):
It'd be fine. It'd be fine, right?
And you've do you listen to podcasts?
Yeah, I do actually. What's your favourite podcast?
At the moment, this one. Which episodes?
Come on, I'll test. You here?
Oh my favourite one. I like some Cal Brunton's one of
his. Confidence.
Oh yes, Yep. Resonate a lot with what he has.
To say the attitude is altitude.Yeah, the attitude.
I love it. Yeah, put your swag in the bag,
(01:27):
Cal. Yeah, no, he was great.
He was it was a bit of a an interesting podcast that one
because I grew up watching Cal on TV and he was always beating
the Brisbane Bullets playing forthe Perth Wildcats.
And I just sort of half didn't like him.
But then knowing what a such a legend he was and at the game at
the at the time and what he's done for Australian basketball
was great to actually finally meet him in person.
(01:48):
As is you right. And thanks for coming in all the
way now, Emily Hawkins, not a overall household name globally,
but maybe in the future. What's your sport?
Tell us about it. Well, I'm a women's range prompt
writer. It's traditionally American
sport but we're trying to bring it to Australia so we can have
(02:10):
more women get involved and get to the main.
Main finals is in America and weget to have a have a team over.
There ranch bronc riding, that'sthe profession, that's the
sport. Yeah, compared to what some
might think of bull riding, right?
Yeah, So in Australia there's a few, few different rodeo events
(02:31):
with the rough stock. There's well bull riding.
What you see with the PVR, we have saddle bronc that you see
Damien Brennan and most men rideat every rodeo bareback, which
is a wild ride with a rigging structural horse like a suitcase
handle. But yes.
And then we also have Ladies Ranch front ride, which in
(02:52):
America it's not ladies, it's men and women.
But in Australia, it's more, more for the women, yeah.
Excellent. And so ranch bronc riding and
fabulous to get you. You're my first ever ranch bronc
riding professional coming on here.
What's the where, where did it come from and when did you kind
of realise that there's a sport here?
(03:12):
And actually, I'm interested. Well, the sport, how it started
for me is a friend of mine. I met her one New Year's and we
got to chatting and she said, oh, I'd really like to try
bronch riding. And I said, oh, I've been to a
couple of schools, Saddle Bronx schools.
(03:33):
And she's like, really like we should, we should do that.
And so got to go to the contact with Ken Reid and Gatton.
And after a few goes of that we were we're talking, we both
reckon we like this TV show thatwas in America.
It was called Cowgirls and it was just women riding ranch
brunks and starting out and following a tour with them on
(03:55):
it. And we thought that'd be such a
good idea to actually when I start seeing it for the first
time, I thought our two handed bronc riding just that looks
crazy like that's not for me. But she really wanted to give it
a try. And I thought, let's do it.
And we, we organised A practise day and we bring the Western
saddles and wrote in them. And yeah, that would just come a
(04:17):
little bit naturally. And I thought, oh, well, this
is, this is what I want to do. And she, she actually contacted
the guy that ran that TV show orran the ran the association that
the TV show was following. And instead of getting a reply
like, oh, when, whenever you're in America, come and see us,
they said, oh, like you, you're in Australia like we should, we
(04:38):
should add you guys to our worldfinals.
Like, let's get this happening. That's kind of the birth of
branch from in Australia. Right.
So you're not only part of the sport that is sort of an
existing sport globally, but nowyou're bringing, as you said,
you're bringing it to Australia as a, as a like a recognised
sport or adding Australia into aworld champ.
That must make you feel pretty proud.
(04:59):
Yeah, I'm pretty proud of it. And it definitely gives you
somewhere to go. Like you're when you you ride
with the boys in saddle bronc and that's fine.
But yeah, they they welcome you except you, but you're not one
of the boys. And you, it's really hard to win
one of them events as a female rider.
It's probably not impossible, but it's definitely hard.
(05:21):
You got to work a lot harder. It's nice to have your own
division and your own little thing to go chase together and
travel together like all the girls.
We just seem to have the best time on our little rodeo trips
together. Yeah, that's brilliant.
And and in terms of like gettingit a, a, a brand awareness and
getting it out there in Australia, how's it been?
(05:42):
What's been the hurdles and what's been the been?
Steady, I guess at the start a lot of people were questioning
like why the hell do these girlswant to ride frogs and wondering
if we were what, what was our motives behind wanting to ride?
I guess there was a lot of that and thinking are very
traditional, like our girls don't ride bucking horses.
And I guess you just have to prove a little bit that you do
(06:05):
want to be there and you deserveto be there and you're not being
silly and not taking it seriously like it it is.
It is a serious sport and you could get hurt and we all know
that now. Yeah, no, for sure.
And we'll touch on that in a second, but I'm just trying to
think in my, in my brain about newer sports that the people
sort of started off with a little bit of silliness.
(06:26):
And one of them that really comes to mind was 2020 in
cricket, whereby the first few games is like, oh, it's just a
muck around game and muck around, etcetera.
And you look Fast forward like 20 years, like it's big, huge
business now and people have taken it seriously and, and
whatnot. And, and little things like
paddle ball and pickle ball are rising as well.
So you're kind of competing withthat.
But now knowing that what there's World Championships,
(06:47):
there's events, there's organised events, must feel good
that there's good participation or hopefully steady
participation in the sport. Yeah, it's starting to grow.
It's getting a lot of interest, a lot of traction and and there
are a lot more rodeo committees wanting to add it to their,
wanting to add it to their programmes.
And so it's really exciting for us.
It's now we have a few hurdles with insurances and getting into
(07:12):
different rodeos and bigger rodeos, but we're working on
those. What's the what's the the
ultimate skill or I suppose you know, mental skills and physical
skills to be a good bronc rider?I guess the mental toughness is
probably the a huge one that will get you get you further
than anything, but that is also something you can train.
(07:35):
And I guess being very being physically fit and strong,
especially as a female, like youhave a lot more to work on to
get to writing fitness. Yeah.
And what sort of like for you, like the training programme and
give the listeners a bit of an insight into behind the scenes
(07:55):
what a training programme looks like.
For me it's a mixture of strength and cardio, more like
CrossFit style functional training, a lot of mobility and
a lot of time on the spare boardwith drills and skills just
working on little things. Muscle memory and visualisation
(08:17):
is a huge 1. You just got a picture.
The perfect ride. And almost by the time I get
onto a horse I'm just, I'm over it.
I've already thought about it somuch that I've rode it a million
times over that I'm kind of bored with it by the time I
actually get there. Yeah, and the and the scoring
and the winning and how does that all work?
Scoring is 2 judges and there's it's out of 100 points all up.
(08:42):
So 2 judges scored 25 points each to the rider and the horse.
Right, so there's a bit of. Out of 50.
And when it comes to the horse, so you do you work with a
particular horse or do you kind of just get randomly allocated?
No, it's. It's just a draw, random
allocation, like it's you put your name in for the entries and
(09:04):
they'll just draw a horse out ofa hat or however they do it.
Now you find out on the day, or sometimes it's a shoot draw,
they give you a shoot number, you stand there and whatever
horse runs in, that's what you, your partner, Yep, for the ride.
And is there such thing as a perfect hundred?
Not yet, no. No.
Is it? Is it a Unicorn?
Does it exist? Like in terms doesn't exist?
(09:27):
No, no. So what do you aim for when you
go out and you're visualising 1000 times before you come on to
your thing? What are you aiming for?
What sort of score are you aiming for?
Yeah, you're aiming for 100. You're right.
Well, they call it right. B, 9090.
B 90 OK for you and you've you won with 90 before.
I think the closest I've got to 88.
(09:47):
OK. And 88 was the win.
Yeah, 88 was the win. Yeah, right.
OK. And So what do they charge the
horse on? The horse they judge like how
hard he barks, obviously if he'sgot a good pattern, if he's a
big strong horse and holds his hold, holds his pattern and for
the duration of the 8 seconds and.
(10:12):
Yeah, how long does 8 seconds feel like?
Feels like 20. Does it?
Yeah, Yeah, Yep. And then you like go back and
like you could probably. I mean, I used to be a like a
quasi amateur sprinter and I remember it was sort of like 10
or, you know, 11 seconds probably in 100 metres.
But it felt like, you know, you're preparing so long for
(10:33):
this kind of race and then it's over and you're like, but you
can sort of visualise everythingand tell a story about 8 seconds
or 10 seconds running. But yeah, 11 seconds in running,
going like I could, I could write a novel on that, that, you
know, even though it goes too quickly.
Start out that 8 seconds is justa blur like and.
Then I get out and then the competitor here and this and
(10:54):
that and then I go forward. Then they go and then they went
ahead and, you know, and you're like, wow, that was only 11
seconds or whatever it might be,right?
Yeah. And you can do that, right?
Yep. And do you remember, do you have
your, your, your favourite type of, you know, when you got that
eighty, Bob, was it 88? Your high school?
Yeah, Yeah. Do you remember that?
Yeah, I do. I I remember that.
Go on, give us a bit of a commentary on that.
(11:14):
That, that right, even just the lead up to that ride, there was
a it was a shoot draw and there was a heap of horses there and
there was a an Appaloosa horse everyone wanted and we were all
like, my friend already sort of had dibs on that one.
So I sort of said, oh, what's this one here?
And they said, oh, she bucks good.
And I just thought, Oh, well, you want the horse that bucks
(11:35):
the best. But this was early days and we
thought like, maybe you don't want the one that bucks real
good. But anyway, I just put my stuff
there and got ready and yeah. And it bucked out and it just,
she was, she was pretty rank. And yeah, it sort of come out
and I just remember like, oh, I haven't fallen off yet.
(11:56):
And she circled around a little bit and and it felt like the
longest time ever that I was on this was packet.
The pickup man's coming in. And I'm just thinking like, Get
Me Out of here. But the horse was spinning, so
it was very hard for the horse to pick up me and to come in
close enough to get me off. And she finally straightened up
a little bit and he come in and I got off, Yeah.
(12:17):
There you go. There's a lot more of an 8
seconds commentary there. It was awesome.
And Emily, before this podcast, we talked about injuries.
You've gone through one yourself.
Myself, I, I slipped a disc in my back and I, I think that was
more from my job as an operator in a dozer all day, sitting sort
of perched up there and putting pressure on my back and.
(12:38):
There must be a lot of muscles that you don't realise that
exist in your body when you're doing bronc ride training that
you have to kind of train, as you said, in muscle memory.
Yeah, I think the one muscle I find if I fall off pretty
quickly, I'm not very sore like I'm Jarred off from hitting the
ground. But if you cover 8 seconds, my
forearms, yes, the sorest they've ever been.
(13:00):
And do you get the, what's it called, the delayed onset thing
like the day, the day later? Two days later and you're like,
can't open your hands. Oh yeah, Like, can you open this
bottle of milk for me? No.
And you speak of of of the, the the disc in the back very
painful. Did you end up having back
spasms? Yeah, I did actually.
I had backs. I'm trying to sleep was the
(13:20):
worst. Couldn't get comfortable any
direction and yeah, even just like you'd sit down for a while
and you have to stand back off and it's so hard to get back up.
It's it's I had it in late last year, which is horrible for your
43 year old with no core muscle,but you have to put your elbows
down on to get up a lot. I found on the bed and it's I
wouldn't wish on anyone but. We did tuck and roll to get out.
(13:44):
We did tuck and roll to get out and then they call it the socks
and jocks. Putting your socks and jocks on,
you could end up having like more spasms or more kind of like
painful lightning through your back.
And I'm sure there's people out there that have gone through the
the back spasms. But it's not just the however
long 2448 hours that you have this.
It's like the the muscles get shaken up for so long and that
(14:04):
sort of feel like an arthritisy pain took.
A long time it was my hip, mainly my my hip and leg were
just in pain all day and I just was like, this is horrible.
I had to, I went through finals with that.
I, I wrote, I took as many painkillers as I could to get
through that. And I probably didn't ride my
best because I wasn't very fit and I couldn't train because my
(14:27):
leg was giving me trouble. And I did what I could.
And afterwards I did took I think maybe 8 months off.
Eight months Wow OK that seriousyou know in terms of the ongoing
pain he. Just wouldn't stop and there was
nothing. I was going to physio massage,
nearly getting an exorcism just to try and get something to
(14:48):
happen. And doctors were like, oh, you
don't need surgery yet. Wow.
And then so you talked about championships there and you
talked about the relationship with the the World
Championships. Did you want to talk about your
progress, I suppose a couple of years ago to get into the World
Championships in 23 and then it also to 24?
(15:08):
Yeah, well, actually qualified before COVID and well, COVID
stopped one year stopped 2020-2021 I think it was still,
it was still stopped and we couldn't get much done there.
And then 2022 I I could go and but I didn't want to get a COVID
(15:30):
jab. Yes, Yep.
Yeah, various travel restrictions and things like
that, Yeah. Didn't want that and yeah, so I
couldn't go, couldn't travel without it.
And so 2023 I'd re qualified. We had another year and I that
was probably our biggest year for women's range from.
(15:51):
Coming out of the back of all the COVID things.
COVID and just getting getting it off the ground here and we
went from 2 events a year to 12 that year, I think, yeah.
In Australia, yeah, right. And is it, was it a state by
state thing or was it more like a national event?
10 * a year or. More it was more Queensland
because most of our writers at the time were based in
(16:13):
Queensland and our connections and contacts with rodeos in the
area were around here and yeah. Yeah, right.
OK. And so then you is there a
qualifying thing to get to? The sorry we collected out of
all those rodeos for the year, if you every win scored your
points, so you accumulated the points for the year and then the
(16:35):
top three, well top two at that stage, top 2 got to go to
America. Yeah, right.
OK. And Emily, to run an event,
obviously it costs money and there's horses and Bronx
involved and there's events likein terms of a space and
officials and things like that. Like are you part of that as
well? Are you driving all that or that
(16:57):
associations are going? Actually, we're all high swan.
Yeah, we do it a little bit different.
We, you've got to obviously finda sponsor for the prize money,
but we find rodeos in the area that have the right insurance
that will let us ride and, and sort of pitch them that we want
to. This is our event, this is who
we are. This is what we're working
(17:18):
towards, obviously collecting points for America and get into
their rodeos. And usually it's a contract, a
stock contractor that owns the horses that sort of support us
as well. And yeah, we've been, we end up
in their rodeos and money. So it's just the yeah,
sponsorship. And on that sponsorship, I mean,
(17:38):
how important is have you had some good sponsors along the way
and people that have really kindof went right?
I'm part of this. I'm happy to be a part of.
That yeah, we've had some reallygood ones along the way, just
like for the prize money of the events, which is always grateful
for that. Yep.
And, and in terms of like, are they local businesses or are
they kind of like national brands?
Or yeah, usually just local business case.
(18:00):
Yeah. I was going to say while while
we're here and and have a hopefully get a growing audience
plug out there for some nationalbrands maybe.
Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah.
And your trip to America, you talked about that and getting
and that's where that initial discussion came from.
Was that right, adding Australia?
Yeah, yeah, we got the got our spot in the in the invited to
(18:21):
the world finals and now we justhad to get girls ready and
qualify, which was really exciting.
I think this year we had 2020 girls compete 20 yeah this
season. That's awesome, don't you think?
Yeah, I think it was great. I think it's it's really good to
see it growing and there's a lotmore trying to come along.
(18:42):
But yeah, the 2023, I think there was, I think there was 10
of us 10:10 And yeah, it's grown.
And where are the championships and when are they in the?
US at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming in July, end of July.
Yeah, OK. And you've been over a couple of
(19:03):
times. You want to describe the whole
event from start to finish. It is surreal.
It's, yeah, one of like the whole one of highlights of my
life getting to go right there. Because I always felt if you
went down the path of a saddle bronc rider, you, you as a
female, you probably will never make it to any big stages like
(19:26):
that. Like it'd be a once in a million
chance of females getting that far in saddle bronc, but in the
ranch. Wrong.
It was an amazing experience to be able to ride on a big stage
like that in your own sport. Yeah, so it's like a pinch of
yourself moment combined with a bit of nervousness.
Yeah, it was actually, it was strange.
(19:46):
It was one of those times I wasn't nervous because I just
thought, well, is what it is andI'm here and I just want to give
it all I got. So it was, it was actually
really good. The crowd, the amount of people
there is like the most I've everseen in a stadium.
I'm pretty sure it's like 30,000. 30,000, probably even
more. That's unbelievable.
(20:06):
Numbers wrong but. Yeah, but I mean like the the
the actual noise, the level of the.
Atmosphere, just the the people that you're getting ready with
on in the bird cage is there's like the best of the best
Cowboys in the world under theregetting ready and you're just
there ready next to them. It's yeah, it's pretty amazing.
And in terms of the the contingent that went over, how
(20:27):
many Australian girls went over in 23 and 24?
23 there was two of us, and 24 they added three of us.
Right. And how many girls are there
that compete in the overall world?
Championships, I think there's, I think they fill the shoots, I
think there's 10. Ten OK, and then you've got your
(20:51):
out of 100 and you've got like can't be just one.
What do you call it? Bronc ride?
How many are there that you get to do in the world champs?
It's for the world finals. It's it's 2 days.
Two days, Yep, Yep. OK, Yep.
And then in 23, you want to talkabout your experience and then
leading into 24. Yeah, 23.
(21:12):
I'd like to say 23 was probably my, my warm up year.
Yeah, yeah. So 23 was the first year we had
like a fair amount of rodeos in Australia and got to.
Go over there and yeah. Yeah, 23 was a good year.
(21:35):
We got to go over and it was ourfirst, my my first year over the
the two other girls went the year before when I couldn't go
with COVID 23 was my first year and it was, it was I loved it
over there. It was a big eye opener and and.
Came back in 24 again one of theone of the experiences.
Again, the first year I, I drew a, a softer horse for the first
(21:58):
round and he sort of run off with me and I got a reride.
And my reride horse was meant tobe in the, in the shootout, the
end of the Saddle Bronx shootout, which is a bit more
hectic. And the one of the shootout
horses jumped into the racetrack.
And so they got me to sit on my horse and just wait there.
(22:19):
And I think hindsight, I should have just got off this horse and
got like kept myself active and I'm just sitting there for maybe
2 minutes. I just got really loose and lost
my sort of fire and they sort ofcalled for me to go a few times.
So I not only had every time, they're like, you gotta hurry
up, hurry up. And there's there's a lot of
(22:40):
stress, a lot of pressure. And yeah.
And by the time I come out of this shoot, I was just so loose
and just the horse threw me. Yeah, right.
I mean, that's, I mean there's all different types of emotions
that you feel when you you jump on and obviously you know, the
sometimes out of your control and sometimes in your control,
I'd imagine. Yeah, they, they sort of push
like, oh, girls, hurry up. Don't be slow.
Girls need to hurry up. And none of us stopped moving.
(23:03):
Like we're all there still working.
And they're like, hurry up, you need to hurry up.
And you know, I'm like, do they do this to the men too or just
ask us? We're girls.
And anyway, like even one of the, the second day's horse that
I got in my saddle was like slipped back a little bit and
they're like rushing us. And, and I was, I wanted to
(23:24):
change it. And I was like, you got to go.
You got to pull, you got to pullyour saddle down.
And I just stop it. Just just pull it tight.
Let's go. Yeah.
And so, yeah, I mean it was obviously the whole event is
something which is memorable andthe the networking and and also
like the the ability to kind of share common interests.
It's pretty cool, right? Yeah, yeah, Some of the you meet
(23:46):
girls from all over the world, like the 2023 finals.
I travelled with a girl from Belgium.
They had a European team there, so it was really cool to meet
her. And then we travelled to a few
different towns along the way and met like we met Rod Hay that
was an NFR like world champion for the Saddle Bronx in the day
and he was teaching a school. We met like other Cowboys from
(24:09):
all over the place. It was.
It was pretty cool. Yeah, awesome.
And you got the the bargain going, right. 23 wasn't the best
year personally from the actual competition point of view, but
let's go again in 24. Do you want to talk about 24?
Then 24 I think was like the year, my running and gunning
year 24, I'd won Australian champion here at home.
It was the first year we had a recognised title so that was
(24:33):
pretty special for me and then made World Finals and World
Finals I even though I had this back injury I still ended up
fourth in the world. That's amazing.
How does it feel when you say that now?
Yeah, I wish it was world champion, but anyway, it's still
(24:55):
pretty awesome to be able to saythat I got that achievement in
my sport. And how?
What was the results like? Were they pretty close?
Was there 1? Person there that was pretty
close. Yeah.
That all that it would have been, it would have been hard to
be a judge, I can say. Yeah, judging.
(25:16):
You landed with fourth in the world.
Yeah, of all the people in the world that do your sport, your
4th. That's Yeah.
And, and I'm, I'm assuming that there's a lot of competitiveness
in you and a lot of Oh yeah. And the.
Competitive from day one. And but then obviously the goal
is to be the number one in the world.
Yeah. And and as a goal, your goal
setup. Yeah, I think me myself, if if
(25:38):
I'm doing something I'm I don't want to do it just for fun.
Like if I try sport and and I like it, I want to be the, I
want to be the best. And what makes you become the
best in the world and what you do?
What do you reckon is it? Is it the a lot of mental
training, A lot of. Yeah, I think preparation and
leaving no stone unturned to trywork out how to get to what you
(26:00):
want. Yeah.
And have you worked that out yet?
Like are you on the on the path at the moment?
I think I am, yeah. It's just sometimes it takes a
little bit of luck to put it alltogether.
And a little bit of support as well and storytelling as well.
I mean, thanks for coming on andbeing the your your first
podcast. But like in terms of social
media and getting buy in and andgetting a support crew, that's
(26:22):
important. Yeah, it's definitely networking
is a huge thing for us and especially I've found the
hurdles of trying to promote ourour sport and get get it taken
seriously and getting those opportunities.
And it's almost now like you have a little bit of a, you've
(26:43):
had some achievements and you can build your personal brand to
make that work as a whole for your sport.
The rising tide lifts all boats.Now you've got an Instagram
handle girl on a bronc. Have you found on a bronc?
How have you found? And follow that please.
By the way, listeners out there,how have you found Instagram and
the social media style of like, actually I have to be a bit more
(27:04):
transparent. I have to be a little bit more
open, a little more present, a little more present.
Yeah, I. Feel like everything I post very
genuine to me. And a lot of people say that
they're like, oh, it's exactly you.
And I've always wanted it that way.
But yeah, at the start we were very, I'm not posting anything
on there. All these people put all this
stuff on social media and, and Ithink over the years I've
(27:26):
learned that it is now more of abusiness and that you do use it.
You do use it for those reasons and not just for the sake of
putting it on there. And then in your, I mean you've
got a personal goal which has been number one in the world.
But then as a sport here in Australia, what would be a goal
there? What would be a big hairy
audacious goal? A lot of our goals here are just
(27:49):
getting into bigger events and building, building our sport
here. Like a huge goal for me would be
work our insurances out to be able to compete at any rodeos
that wish to have us in their programme, which include like
pro rodeos here. We've come across a couple of
(28:09):
hurdles there and working on it,but yes, that'll definitely be
one of the big goals. And to get that goal over the
line, you need an insurance company that's flexible.
And then in terms of like, you know, understanding the sport,
A. Few things what what had
happened was depending on insurance companies that back
those associations, there's there's one that they will only
(28:35):
cover what's in the constitutionof the association and it's
hasn't really got to the point where we've got it into the
constitution or. Yep, OK.
So there, there's a lot more so.There's more progress to be made
in the sport A. Lot more progress to be made,
but. It's hard to kind of chicken in
the egg, you kind. Of in the paperwork side of
(28:55):
things. And then sometimes you don't
want to push that till we have more numbers and more
competitors to sort of make it worth its while.
Yeah, but it's definitely conversations we've been having
lately. Yeah, awesome.
And and then obviously there's there's location base as well
and rodeos etcetera. And how many rodeos in Australia
(29:16):
would there be every year? Rodeos all up.
I could tell you there'd be a lot.
There'd be, there'd be a lot. There's, there's probably 10
associations that run circuits through the year.
Yeah. So yeah, there'd be there'd be
plenty. And then in your, in terms of
your love of sport and where youcame to get involved in the in
the sport, how would you, what would you suggest to people that
(29:39):
are interested or young girls that are interested in the
sport, where do they begin? For anyone really that wants to
get into rodeo, it would be likefinding them contacts, going to
a, you can see it, find a school.
Like there's a lot of rodeo schools around networking with
like other Cowboys that you might know or where you've seen
it. You could go to your local rodeo
(29:59):
committee and ask like, do they know anyone point you're in the
right direction. Yeah, it's just go for it.
But I know some people that havejust lobbed up and into the
rodeo. Yeah, and what does, what does
like ranch bronc riding teach you in life, you think?
Ranch bronc riding definitely help with my confidence and like
(30:20):
sort of inspired me. Yeah, it's definitely built me
into a a more stronger, tougher person and and a lot more firm
with who I am. And you're competitive, right?
There's a trait I can see. And since just talking to you in
person, what other traits do youthink that you've got which
would make you, you know, fourthin the world and hopefully
(30:42):
become best in the world? This is a tricky question.
I know because it's your first podcast.
You probably don't like talking about yourself.
Like, oh, So what? What makes you strong?
What do you think you've got that others don't?
I feel like I can't say others don't have it, but it's it's I
see a lot of the good competitors have these traits
(31:03):
and I see a lot of people that have these traits that probably
haven't worked it out that they have them yet.
I always thought as having a lotof resilience and there's one
common thing I see a lot with a lot of the girls I'm friends
with, I ride, we all come from asimilar sort of back, back story
is we kind of were, we didn't fit in with the girly girls and
(31:25):
there was nothing wrong with them or wrong with that.
But we just, that wasn't our tribe and our crowd.
And we sort of felt like, oh, they're talking about hair
products and we're talking aboutsomething else.
We're talking about yeah, cars or something.
You're. Going to find your tribe a bit.
Rougher and then just kind of look at us like we're an alien
(31:46):
and I was always like, well, youdon't like me.
I don't like you either. Like I got bigger fish to fry.
And and then when when I do did meet this through this sport,
when I did meet these P these girls that all have this, this
rougher sort of lifestyle, we all just clicked.
And now it's almost funny. It's come full circle.
(32:08):
We weren't the we were the tomboy kind of girls that didn't
dress up that didn't. So and now we have our own girl
tribe and all of us are like dressing up and like getting
more like feminine. It's like this is crazy.
The full circle, but you know, the sport and sports find that
like I just through my interviewing of sports people
and people involved in sport, finding your tribe, finding your
(32:30):
crew, it's a it's an out it's something which you know it it
it's a sense of belonging, rightAnd that's hard in life, right
And I think and sharing common interests and that's why kids
play sport and win, lose or drawis sharing a common interest and
sharing something that you can talk about to someone as well,
because a lot of people again, as you mentioned is like, I'm
not going to talk about this. It's pretty boring.
(32:51):
I'd rather talk about that and all of a sudden you put in a
room where people talk about it.You're like, this is cool.
I can keep talking and keep learning from from people.
If you come across people in your crew or your tribe that
have been a bit sort of like, you know, really close friends,
but also been a little bit of like, you know, I suppose idols
or something which you kind of, you know, learn from them.
Yeah, so I on my journey of trying to find advice on how to
(33:16):
ride Ranch Rock because obviously when I started in
Australia, there wasn't any other one in Australia to learn
from. You could definitely learn a lot
of great mentors and friends that were saddle bronc riders
and offered so much advice therethat my real family that I think
of my closest people are when I reached out to, you know, I sort
(33:38):
of scanned Facebook and found like some of the best the world
champion range writers in America and I sent them a quick
message. And just through those first
couple of messages turned into agreat mentorship and friendship.
And now these people are some ofmy best friends and most
respected idols that I could ever come across.
(33:59):
And yeah, they've just welcomed me into the family.
Isn't that cool that you've donethe research?
Something I've never had before,someone take you under their
wing so seriously. And I think that's probably a
credit to what got me to where Iam today, is having someone that
put that time into me. And I was just nobody.
I was random on the Internet from Australia and yeah, and
when I went over there, actually, I went and stayed with
(34:20):
them. And yeah, so really good friends
think gonna be lifelong friends.That's amazing.
And, and, and full credit to youto kind of suss them out to go.
Actually, I wouldn't mind. I mean, people are human beings
and people ask me all the time about how I get people on this
podcast and I reach out to them on an email, LinkedIn and people
are people. They're like, yeah, sure.
That's great advice to anyone. It's like, if you want to know
(34:40):
something, well, what's the worst that could happen if you
send this email and be like, hey, like, I think could you
help me with this? If you've got time, like, I'd
appreciate that. And what are they going to do?
Not write back or say no. Really.
And what's that? And and that gives you what,
like 30 seconds of lost time in your life?
Yeah, like it's, it might get you something that you really
(35:00):
need and wants. Very like my, I think my life
motto is find out what it is that you want, you know, work
out what it is that you really want and then find a way to get
it. It's a tough one to work out
what you really want. I've battled with that myself a
lot, a lot of the times, like what's Nirvana look like?
What is it unachievable? Is it like, you know, and I've
(35:23):
had people talk about their stretch goals, their normal
goals, just like all these sort of things like I never hit my
stretch goal, but I get to 1/2 astretch goal, but I also hit,
you know, my short term goal. Do you sit down every year and
do your goals? I do it all the time.
I'm one of them. I'm an overthinker.
Everyone says you need to stop overthinking, but I think it's
(35:43):
my superpower because I think through every single small piece
of everything and overthink everything to I've got a very
clear path of where where I wantto go, what I need to do.
And the connection between your goals and your daily habits so
you can connect the 2 going. Actually, in my head, I'm doing
these reps because I want to. Yeah, they do.
(36:05):
Sometimes they ebb and flow, obviously have one of them days,
but yeah, most times it's everything's strategic and
getting to where I need to be, especially now with like
recovery and rehab and getting myself back to where back to
that. Competitive fitness has been a
long Rd. Yeah, no.
And so when you're in the physioor you're in the gym trying to
(36:27):
recover, does the inspiration ofyour goal.
Keep you going, especially thosedays we like, I don't feel like
doing anything and you just keepgot to remember.
And Emily, your, your goal is tobe #1 in the world.
And everything you do kind of somehow relates back to that big
hairy audacious skull, which is not so hairy and audacious
(36:48):
because you've been close in your fourth in the world.
I'm curious to know, do you switch off at all?
I did switch off for a bit, having my time off.
I think it is important to have a little bit of downtime away
from it because you're always switched on and you're always
hyper focused on it and going sohard that you can get burnt out.
(37:11):
And I like to think if you do have an offseason, like go spend
time doing other hobbies, other things, and I think you come
back wanting it twice as much. That's a good thing.
And what do you do to switch off?
Me. I like boxing.
Oh. Oh, so another sport.
Yeah, it's something I've, I've,I've wanted to get more into.
(37:31):
He's actually a pretty funny story for you.
So to keep fit for before I wentfor 2023, there wasn't much
practise. It wasn't many rodeos around and
I wanted to stay, I wanted to besharp to go to America.
I thought these is my first timeon these big horses.
They're a lot stronger than whatwe have.
I don't know if I'm ready, but I'm going to be fit.
(37:51):
And the where I started working had a boxing gym and I was like,
well, I should just go here and get a little bit fit.
And when I probably was in the gym for about a week and I've
seen advertisement for a cowboy boxing match, it was like a
charity event on the end of a boxing tournament and said it
(38:16):
was like, Yep, calling the Cowboys to come, come fight.
And we're like, oh, I seen a couple of friends that I knew
had no business being in the ring entering.
I thought it's one of them dealslike let's do this.
Like, I'll sign up. And I said to my coach, I was
like, do you think I could be ready for this?
And he was, he was like, he musthave misunderstood me and
(38:39):
thought that I said, oh, if I ifI worked hard, could I enter a
fight like this? And he said, yeah, yeah, if you
work really hard, like you can do it.
And I thought, Yep, sweet, I'm entering this.
So I've put my name down, signedup for it.
And he's seen the advertisement and seen I was in it.
And he's like, why would you do this without consulting me?
Like, that's not best of luck toyou.
(38:59):
Good luck with that. Like don't come back.
And then, yeah. And then he sort of got over it.
I said, but he told me to look at the message.
And then he was like, oh, I didn't mean that.
I didn't read it. And I was just like, OK, well,
I've entered now. And he's like, they'll you
better train because like, you're definitely not going to
be ready. But he he did.
(39:19):
He got me ready. He did as much as we could in
five weeks. And that that tournament was
actually the night I've the night before I was flying to
America. Right.
So the the scheduling wasn't great.
No, the schedule, but I thought while I'm in Brisbane, I could
do that at Pittsworth and and then get on a plane and fly to
America because I didn't realise, like how I didn't
(39:42):
realise the risks that could have been involved in that.
But I was like, I was fully confident.
I'm like, I got this. And then everyone was like, oh,
that girl that your opponent? She's she's a really good
fighter and she's yeah, you you want to have a handful there and
then. So I think that pushed me to
train a little bit harder. And yeah, so I actually second
round stoppage and yeah, I won the fight.
(40:06):
Wow awesome. OK so boxing is a little passion
project side hobby for. You that kind of definitely.
And and it's not it keeps you fit as well, obviously, and
keeps you mentally fit as well. And then you flew out to America
the next day. Yeah.
Wow. What a what a whirlwind 2448
hours for the week. That was a whirlwind.
It's like, what did you do last week?
Well, let me begin with the boxing match.
(40:27):
I. Think that's how I live my life
though, and a lot of people, a lot of my friends are like what?
Well, that's, that's awesome. Now we're going to go into a
couple of things with the Scoreboard Podcast 1 is your
scoreboard moment, which is a moment in your life which you
remember very, very vividly. And you may have already covered
it, but if you haven't, that's OK, where it's sort of like I
(40:47):
remember that moment. And then from then things
changed. One of my billboard moments was
maybe my first ever bronc ride. Yeah, it was first ever ranch
bronc ride. And it was kind of like the
deciding day that do I like thistwo handed style?
(41:11):
Is this really for me? Do I, do I want to do this?
And we rode and just happened todraw a really cool little horse
that was, he was really fun to ride and he made you look really
cool and he bucked and yeah. And and I stayed on and and I
thought like, Nah, I can do this.
I'm I'm a little bit good at this.
I can that just pushes you to keep going.
(41:32):
We get a little bit good at it. That was probably the the
ultimate thing that was like setit in motion of chasing Ranch
front riding. That's awesome.
And that's so vivid and clear that first one and and and the
memory is almost maybe feels like yesterday.
Yeah. The other question I ask is the
the all time favourite sporting moment, which is a bit of a
(41:55):
tricky 1. When you put on the spot about
what what you know, what is one of those moments where you go?
This is what sports all about. This is awesome.
I've got an all time favourite sporting moment.
It's it's most recent. There's probably two of them
that are very closely they they're close to me and close to
my heart with what I what my sport is.
(42:15):
And probably when Kyle Hamilton at the NFR in the bull riding,
he, he, it was really good. He won the world in the bull
riding. And then Damo Brennan coming
second in the world in the saddle.
Brunt like 2 Aussies over there killing it in rodeo sports and
rodeo field. So that's really cool.
(42:36):
And then we have us on the at the women's world final.
So yes. That's so good.
My favourite sporting moment. Yeah, and, and being in, you
know, in sport and knowing them and following in, I think that's
half the, the battle with some of the minority.
Broadly speaking, sports is the the people, the characters, the
storytelling behind it. And you're obviously knowing
them, following them, tracking their journey and people are
(42:57):
following you, which is great. And, and, and, and wanting to
you to prosper and be successfulin your story, which I think
obviously is, is what sports about as well.
Now a little bit of fun, our last podcast was John O Flegg
from Freshwater Strategy and andwhat they do is they do a lot of
expansion teams and get bids together.
(43:18):
And one of the most well known bids and close to home for John
O was getting the Red Cliff Dolphins into the NRL.
And currently with the Perth Bears and other teams that are
trying to get into expansion teams and getting stakeholders
together. So the scoreboard scramble is a
little game where we spell the word backwards, and it's related
to a previous podcast, so you can download both and listen to
(43:38):
both and listen to see what Jonosaid with his scoreboard
scramble. But the word I'm going to ask
you to spell backwards, and you've got 20 seconds to do it
so you can think about it is dolphins.
So I'm going to ask you to spellthe word dolphins, Emily,
starting now. SNIHP LOD.
(44:00):
I reckon you nailed it. Like I I don't have it here and
I'm just hoping that we can always get back and listen to
it. But yeah, dolphins backwards.
I'm not even going to try. I think ISNIHPLODI reckon that's
it. I reckon you got it in eight
seconds or 10 seconds. Now, if you didn't get it,
that's OK, because the listen's out there going.
On I thought it was going to be way.
(44:21):
Less. All right, You want a hardware
dude? No.
What about QLD? DN A LS N EE UQ.
I reckon that's it. You're good at this.
You can stay here all day. I'm going to you know, I've got
(44:42):
I've got one for you which I I'mgoing to cheat, right?
And I reckon the people out there now, I don't know how to
pronounce it correctly. Is it Cheyenne?
Is that where you the world sounds so Cheyenne.
Cheyenne, how you going with that one?
Oh no, you've got it written on your shirt.
So I'm going to cheat. So.
E and and EYEHC. Yep, you nailed it.
(45:04):
We can do this all day. Well done Emily, You've you've 3
from three I. Could have cheated on the
screen. Oh, I did, yeah.
Yeah, I did. But you have to look at it
backwards. I think that's reversed on the
video. Now I've got one final question
for you, some piece of advice for girls in sport and and also
wanting to, you've also talked about getting into your sport,
(45:24):
but also sport in general. What sport's given you that that
that nothing else has, obviously.
Confidence definitely given me confidence.
Yep. And then for someone that
there's that wants to potentially be as good as you,
what's the going back? The dream of Emily when she was
15. It may not have been this, but
what was the dream for you and what can you tell young girls to
(45:47):
dream dream about now? I think I've already like
covered my find out what it is that you want.
I think that's the most important step is find out what
your goals are. Yep.
And maybe that could be like playing as many sports as
possible or playing what's like getting out there. 15 It was
being a jockey, yeah. And that was my lifetime goal,
(46:10):
yeah. And yeah, it's now somehow ended
up as. Wrong.
And goals can change, right? And that's the thing, like, you
don't need to be kind of like, Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness,
I have to do this. I have to do that.
And then it's like, oh, I'm getting further and further
away. Why not just reset the goal into
something else? And it's a hard thing to do.
And I'm not saying it's just easy, but certainly, you know,
it's it's a hard thing from a person to kind of reset their
(46:32):
goals. But you've done it and now you
want to be best in the world. And I wish you all the best to
be best in the world at your sport.
Currently sort of 2024, fourth in the world.
Wish you all the best with your recovery.
Emily Hawkins, thank you so muchfor coming in and being part of
school board. Thanks for having me.
Congratulations on your first podcast.
You did amazing and and I'm looking forward to following
your progress, sharing your progress through school board,
(46:52):
the platform as well and, and looking forward to to following
you and keeping in touch. Yeah.
Thank you.
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