WEYBURN – The Truco Trick Riders from southeast Saskatchewan made their debut for the year with a week of shows in Brandon, Man., at the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair in the last week of March.
The group is comprised of five girls who love horse-riding and learning how to do tricks, including the newest member, Charlize Hallberg of Weyburn. The other members are Shayda King of Corning, Bailey Steves and Jordanna White, both of Carnduff, and Kyla Dyer of Oxbow. For these shows, Bailey was not present as she is still at agriculture college.
This was the first time to perform with Truco for Charlize, who began training with the girls about six months ago at the King farm at Corning.
“It was the most amazing time! I loved every second of the entire week,” she said. “I felt honoured to be apart of this amazing group of girls and being able to inspire others to chase their dreams and show everyone what we work so hard for.”
She noted the group did a total of six shows, along with four educational talks where they talked about what they do and how they got into trick riding.
“All the girls handled the week great, by the end we were all starting to feel a bit tired and worn out. Our shows were at the evening performances at 7 p.m., and we usually were in the arena between 8 and 11 depending on the day,” Charlize said.
“Kids loved coming to the stalls to meet us, get pictures, meet the horses and get autographed posters by all of us. We made sure that after every performance, once we knew our horses were in good hands, we went into the audience and handed out more posters, got pictures with people, and talked to the people in the crowd. We tried to make the show bigger and better each day throughout the week with Saturday being our biggest performance,” she added.
The four educational talks consisted of a 30-minute time slot for the girls to speak about trick riding, how they got into it, the horses, the tack, the show, and most importantly safety. The stands were always full for the talks.
The parents and families of the girls were on hand to help out, noted Charlize, helping with chores, driving the horses and the girls around, and keeping everything organized and together.
“We really couldn’t have done it without the parents and families, without their support. They truly are amazing,” she said.
Of her first time to perform with the team, she explained, “This experience truly was so good for me to see what it’s like to be in the spotlight and constantly being that role model for others, watching every move you make. It gave me a new sense of professionalism, as this was something I’ve never experienced before. I learned that performing the tricks in front of an audience was a whole new level of presentation when performing tricks. When I am practicing, I tend to focus not so much on how my hands are positioned (like waving to the audience) or smiling, but when you’re out there in front of people it just becomes natural to smile and look at everyone watching you, and make eye contact with people in the crowd and to wave to everyone.”
Asked if the girls are excited about the coming spring-summer season as more shows get booked, she replied, “Yes, absolutely! We already have a couple rodeos booked as of right now with our next one being April 12 and 13 In Tisdale.”
