Author: Scott

𝗦𝗜𝗫 𝗜𝗡-𝗔-𝗥𝗢𝗪 𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗗 𝗧𝗢 𝗖𝗔𝗕𝗔𝗡 𝗔𝗡𝗗 ‘𝗝𝗔𝗬𝗟𝗢’

It’s a remarkable record.

It’s never been done before in any event at the ABCRA National Finals Rodeo.
Moree cowgirl Wendy Caban and her superstar 12yo mare ‘Jaylo Workin’ (SLR Mojos Workin X Classic Amarillo (Morn Deck)) last year won all three go rounds at the ABCRA NFR to claim the Aggregate Barrel Race title. This year, again they won all three go-rounds to claim back-to-back aggregate Barrel Race titles and set a new record of six-in-a-row!

But a look back at the record books and we see they have actually won all three go-rounds at the NFR before, back in 2019 but this just takes that to another level!!

So who is Wendy Caban and when, were and how did this amazing partnership start?

Wendy started riding a pony when she was little. She tagged along with her Dad, Ted Lowick who was a competitive local campdrafter and a great hand, he started many a horse in his younger days. Wendy would ride in Junior
Barrel Race events at drafts and she also did a bit of pony club riding so as a young girl and so was always comfortable on a horse. One of eight siblings (2 sisters and 5 brothers) two of her brothers also competed in rodeo riding bulls, older brother Casey the most successful spending 15 years in America bull riding.

Back in Australia, in 1996 Wendy moved to a property in Dungowan, just down the road from Peter and Janiece Thomas and in time found herself going to rodeos with them. That year, she won her first ABCRA Australian Junior title taking out the Junior Barrel Race contest and winning the aggregate title too! In 1997 she backed it up winning the Rookie Barrel, the Junior Barrel, and the Aggregate titles! Her rodeo career was well underway!

Around 1998 Wendy’s older bull-riding brother Rusty decided it’d be good to mix it up a bit for his younger sister and suggested they head down the road a bit to Dubbo to get some roping lessons from champion cowboy Greg Frewin, the 5-time ABCRA Steer Wrestling Champion, 3-time ABCRA Calf Roping Champion and the 1994 ABCRA All Round Australian Champion Cowboy and that’s where Wendy first learned to rope.

In 1999 Wendy met future husband Troy Caban, son of the legendary John Caban who still holds the equal record with Mary Morgan for most titles in single year when in 1973 he won the ABCRA Australian All Round, Bull Ride, Saddle Bronc and Calf Roping titles all in one season. Credit goes to ‘Fossil’ and her then boyfriend Troy for the additional schooling that soon paid dividends when she won the WPRA (before they became APRA) Breakaway Roping title in 2001.

Married in 2006 Troy and Wendy travelled the miles on the rodeo road and in 2008 Wendy made a huge return to the winner’s circle capturing a Triple Crown in the APRA winning All Round, Barrel Race (on ‘Spider’) and Breakaway Roping titles (on Doctor). That year Wendy also won the ABCRA Aggregate Barrel Race on ‘Spider.’

‘Tyrone Money Spider’ (Morn Deck X Tyrone Sissy) was foaled down on 29/10/94 and bred by Tania Schiller.

As a 16yo, Tania was Wendy’s idol and she watched her compete on ‘Rambo’ and thought to herself, ‘One day I want to be just like Tania and Rambo’. Tania trained ‘Spider’ and in 2003 Wendy bought ‘Spider’ as an 8yo.
Wendy and ‘Spider’ were a special combination.

They won events everywhere they went.

The biggest rodeo of them all in the Southern hemisphere, the Isa Rodeo, proved to be a happy hunting ground and in 2005 Wendy won All Round Champion Cowgirl and she and ‘Spider’ won the Barrel Race under her maiden name Lowick.

More success at Isa on board ‘Spider’ winning the Ladies Barrel Race title in 2008, 2012 and 2014 as well as Mount Isa All Round titles in 2009, 2012 and 2015 roping off ‘Doctor’ and Barrel Racing off her amazing ‘Spider’.

During this time she also won the Cloncurry Merry Muster Barrel Race (and all that cash) for a remarkable 9 YEARS-IN-A-ROW! !

But in the background, there at home on the farm, the future was ‘growing’.

In 2011 Wendy won the All-Round Champion Cowgirl title at the APRA National Finals. As part of her prize, she was the recipient of a service to the awesome stallion ‘SLR Mojos Workin’ kindly provided by the wonderful Bek Knudsen. Wendy chose ‘Classic Amarillo’ out of one of her favourite stallions Morn Deck (over Top Mark Amarillo) as the dam and the mare we now know and love as ‘Jaylo Workin’ was foaled down on August 8, 2011.

So while ‘Jaylo’ was still quietly growing away down there on the 100 acre block 18kms out of Moree, Wendy and ‘Spider’ kept on their winning ways not only at Isa and the APRA events but they collected the Australian Champion Aggregate title at the ABCRA Finals in 2008 as well.

Wendy homebred ‘Jaylo’ and she started and trained her. She told us “She’s very much a one person horse, it’s just me and her, no-one else rides her, she probably wouldn’t let them”.

She added, “She gets excited when I saddle her up when we’re at a rodeo, I often have to calm her down but that’s probably my fault too, I get excited when I’m at the rodeo as well!’’

‘Jaylo Workin’ is first entered in the iCompete records in the Novice horse Barrel Race at Quirindi in February 2017 placing second. ‘Spider’s last entry in the records was (of course) a win at Scone in late 2015.

By this stage it’s likely the other cowgirls had a case of arachnophobia! Wendy and ‘Spider’ were just so hard to beat. When he was ‘retired’ at the grand old age of 22yo he was still winning but Wendy knew she wanted him sound in his retirement, he had been incredible and he deserved to go out on top.

There may well have been a collective sigh of relief but little did we all know what the new kid in the paddock at home could, and would do!

And it didn’t take long to find out.

With work commitments at the Moree Grainland Produce store keeping her busy Wendy, Troy and Dekota don’t do the miles that maybe they used to. What they do is pick off a few events not too far away from home and then do a fair portion of the northern APRA run, hence the success over the years at Mount Isa.

In 2019 Wendy and ‘Jaylo’ made their first ABCRA National Finals and made the most of the opportunity winning all three go-rounds to claim their first ABCRA NFR Aggregate title, Katina Matthews winning the second of her four-in-a-row Australian ABCRA Barrel Race titles that year.

In 2020, it was a bit of a mixed bag of results at the NFR for Wendy and ‘Jaylo’, their best placing a second in the second go-round in 17.725 secs. In 2020 Wendy did win the ABCRA Australian Rookie Heeler title on ‘Cash’.

In 2022 of course the record run of wins began for Wendy and ‘Jaylo’ with a 17.814 sec run and three rounds later finished with 17.611 secs and three-in-a-row for their second ABCRA NFR Aggregate title. Returning this year to defend that title, to be honest, making it three-in-a-row again wasn’t even in this champion cowgirl’s thinking.

Some two-and-a-half years ago when Breakaway Roping off ‘Cash’ at the Roma Rodeo, Wendy and ‘Cash’’ pulled up to let the lariat breakaway but sadly, the downward pressure on her already dodgy back saw her blow the L3, L4 and L5 discs in her lower back and as a result she badly pinched a nerve. She couldn’t even get off her horse and had to be helped off in excruciating pain. She described it as a burning pain and as a result of the injury she was out for 8 months, unable to sit let alone ride a horse and when she later did, she had no feeling in her left leg.

With COVID and hospital waiting lists growing ever longer, Wendy waited two-and-a-half years for surgery to hopefully repair the damage. That surgery took place shortly after she and ‘Jaylo’ had their last competitive ride at the North Queensland Elite Rodeo in Townsville in August this year where they managed to get around her sister-in-law and serial speedster Leanne Caban and ‘Akka Dakka’ who had just been crowned the week before at the Mount Isa Rodeo as Barrel Race Champions and Wendy and ‘Jaylo’ picked up the Breakaway Roping title in Townsville too.

It’s been a five month re-hab since the operation on the 8th September 2023.

Wendy bought ‘Jaylo’ back into work around 8 weeks ago with some fitness training off the bike but getting on took quite a bit longer. The surgery had gone well but there was still no feeling in the leg, the doctors said that might take a couple more years to actually come right. Disappointed, she still decided to come and run at the finals and aren’t we glad she did!

An opening night 17.663 sec run saw the win the Pryde’s EasiFeed Ladies Barrel Race contest for the fourth round-in-a-row. The second go-round saw them stop the clock in 17.509 secs for five-in-a-row and they finished in a blaze, their quickest time at finals, a fabulous 17.454 sec time. We did remind her that the arena record is 17.04 secs set in round 4, 2014 by Bianca Hertel and ‘’Cash’, already can’t wait for next year!

Wendy shared with us a quite remarkable statistic about ‘Jaylo’.

From all the Barrel runs these two have done since they started together when ‘Jaylo’ was a 4yo, they have only ever had two competition drums. Just two. Fullstop.

And Wendy was quick to claim one as hers the other was a slip on the surface. She said “She just gives 110% every run, I don’t whip her, she gives me everything she’s got, I can’t ask for more, I’m getting all she has already’.

As too the future she said “As long as Jayo and I are fit and healthy we’ll run. She’s had a couple of knee surgeries, a couple of bone chips and a spur, that’s why I only run her occasionally. She’s really sound, loves to run but together we’ve achieved so much. Now, for me, it’s all about my horses. I love to watch my young ones come on and we’ve got some nice ones at home now. Dekota is going to start running ‘Jaylo’s half-sister ‘Sissy’ around the drums and we’ll see what happens’’.

Wendy and ‘Jaylo’ set a new six-in-a-row mark this year’s ABCRA NFR final and become only the second combination to go back-to-back in winning aggregate title. The other cowgirl to go back-to-back actually achieved that feat twice and that cowgirl was Jessie Heinemann in 2001-2 and 2004-5.

Wendy did want to say a special thank in closing our interview.

She said “We’ve travelled both the rodeo road and life’s road together, we met in 1999 so we’ve been hanging out or married 25 years this year and I couldn’t have done all this without Troy so can I just say a special thank you to him, thank you most of all for putting up with me!”

Congratulations Wendy on your Aggregate back-to-back Barrel Race titles and we can’t wait to see you and ‘Jaylo’ next year to hopefully see the record grow.

Photos and words Stephen Mowbray