There’s no limit to what a ten-year-old girl and a twenty-four-year-old horse can do when they really put their hearts together. This amazing story could probably have happened anywhere, but it’s no surprise to me that it happened in the Texas Hill Country.

Cheyanne Hyatt, now 11, lives with her very supportive grandparents, Doug and Donna Hyatt, in the western Kerr County community of Mountain Home. Doug is a long-time ranch construction contractor and former bull-rider; Cheyanne’s been riding since she was just 18 months old, and got her own first horse (a 19-year-old paint mare named Smokey) when she was two. Some of her earliest memories are of riding Smokey up and down the fence line on their D – D Ranch, always followed by her faithful dog, Buster. She was named “Cutest Little Cowgirl” at the Harper Rodeo when she was three.

By age 5, Cheyanne was a skilled rider, and it didn’t take her long to introduce herself to a new bay mare (just a regular ranch horse from El Campo) named Kate. While Kate refused to go when Cheyanne first got in the saddle, the pair were competing just three days later, and won their first prizes ($5, points and ribbons) that evening. While winning ribbons for Yorkshire Swine and Boer Goat projects at the livestock show, teaching herself to play the fiddle (and playing it very well!), and getting good grades at school, Cheyanne competed at every opportunity for the next few years, and established herself as a proven winner. She won a Sportsmanship Buckle at the Leakey Horse Club and took ribbons at the Kerr County 4-H Horse Club before she turned seven, then won Reserve Champion Buckle in Barrels from the Heart of the Hills Barrel Racing Association when she was seven years old. At eight years of age, she won her first saddle in Pole Bending. By the time she turned ten, she had won prizes at events all over Central Texas, and in November of 2006, she qualified for the National Barrel Horse Associatio ...

Read the entirety of this article in the print edition.

Subscribe online — it's quick and easy