Destiny and Dakota
Persevere to achieve Big Dreams
By Dawn Shafer
D
estiny Shafer is a 13 year old with a big
dream on her little horse, Dakota.
At the age of 12 Destiny decided she wanted to
barrel race, this is when
she got 5 year old, 13.3
hand, Dakota. She
was so excited when
she meet her for the
first time and her first
question was, “Does
she barrel race”. She
did not, was the answer
she received. Destiny
asked, “how am I going
to barrel race then?” She
was told that hard work
and determination will
get you a long way.
The journey began.
Destiny was committed
to working her horse
every day and never
given up. Neither one
of them had any kind of training, Dakota was
trained by Destiny and Destiny never had a riding
lesson. She began to win buckles in a couple
months. Actually her first year, she has won 9
buckles both in barrel racing and gymkhana’s.
She rides with the National Barrel Horse
Association and qualified to ride in Youth
World Finals in three posts. The Youth World
Finals were held in Perry, Georgia from July 19th26th 2014.
Our journey began. We traveled to Perry, GA.
Destiny and Dakota were up against 865 horses
from around the World. It was actually a pretty
amazing experience. Her little horse with a big
heart was running the real deal now.
Destiny was also chosen to represent Arizona in
the Coke race held at the finals, where one rider
from each state and 7 countries competed. They
had to turn a barrel and grab a coke bottle off
the top and run home. Destiny, dressed in her
custom “Arizona” rodeo shirt, ran with full focus
and determination on the back of Dakota. They
had an amazing flawless run, with thousands of
people cheering her on for her 8.0 second run.
She held the fast time for a while and ended up
taking a 3rd place spot.
AZintheSaddle.com
They are allowed two go rounds to qualify
for finals, her first run was flawless but she
did not fall into the top 15 to qualify. That
all changed on round two. She ran
another flawless run and placed 7th
which qualified her
for the finals. She
won her World
Championship
Qualification
buckle.
The big day July 26th with
only 130 out of the 865
riders making it to the finals
round. Destiny took a few
tips from Ms. Martha Josey
and applied it to her run,
knocking 3/10th of a second
off and putting her in a 10th
place spot in the 3D’s at Youth
World Finals!
Destiny is the first rider from
Arizona in the youth/teen
division to ever make it to
the finalist round in their 22-24 year history of
running World Finals.
She had an amazing journey both in route and
returning to Ariz