LS Wonder Boy sped around the barrels Saturday night, but it was L.C. Wonder Woman who locked up a major title with a sensational save.
Lacy Childress posted a time of 14.295 seconds to win the National Barrel Horse Association World Championships open finals at James Brown Arena. The remarkable thing is not that she won. It's how she won.
"A miracle," Childress said.
The 22-year-old Robertsdale, Ala., resident grabbed a falling barrel, stood it back up and blazed a path to victory.
After finishing in a tie for second in the open finals last year, Childress won her first world open title and pocketed $4,297. Ashley Snedegar of Luka, Ill., and VF Coup De Ville, the open first-go champions who set the tone one-third of the way through the finals with a time of 14.307, placed second for $3,222.
Tyrney Steinhoff of Vinita, Okla., and Nate Shilabar, the 2004 open world champions, marked 14.308 just 11 runs after Snedegar. Steinhoff and her 22-year-old gelding finished third for $2,148.
Thirty minutes after Steinhoff ran, Childress and her 8-year-old gelding stepped into the pen. The pair finished sixth and ninth in the two open go-rounds earlier in the week with times of 14.467 and 14.469, but it would take an even better showing in the finals
While most riders start their run by circling the right barrel first, Childress and LS Wonder Boy darted around the left barrel first. Then, as they tried to slide around the second barrel, they nudged it. Disaster started to set in, the barrel began its descent to the red Georgia clay.
Then, Childress dropped the reins, grabbed the top of the barrel with her right hand and propped it back up -- if the barrel would've fallen to the ground she would've received a no time. Instead, the crowd roared after the barrel settled upright.
"I knew he was stepping in and rolling back a little too hard," said Childress, a junior radiology major at the University of South Alabama. "When I saw him touch it, I went ahead and went down and got it."
Reach Chris Gay at (706) 823-3645 or chris.gay@augustachronicle.com.
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