Etbauer Not Just Champ’s Wife

spouse of noted saddle bronc rider makes name as barrel racer

Hollie Etbauer of Edmond, Okla., competes Friday in barrel racing during the Rodeo of the Ozarks at Parsons Stadium in Springdale. Etbauer admitted that sometimes it can be difficult blending in at a rodeo. Her husband is five-time world champion saddle bronc rider Billy Etbauer. “You can’t go anywhere with Billy without getting recognized,” Etbauer said, laughing. “I always tease him. He’s like Elvis of the rodeo world.”
Hollie Etbauer of Edmond, Okla., competes Friday in barrel racing during the Rodeo of the Ozarks at Parsons Stadium in Springdale. Etbauer admitted that sometimes it can be difficult blending in at a rodeo. Her husband is five-time world champion saddle bronc rider Billy Etbauer. “You can’t go anywhere with Billy without getting recognized,” Etbauer said, laughing. “I always tease him. He’s like Elvis of the rodeo world.”

SPRINGDALE — Hollie Etbauer wore a pink T-shirt with her husband’s name printed in white lettering on the front.

His name was also on the side of a pickup Etbauer sat in front of Friday evening.

She relaxed in a chair outside of Parsons Stadium and tried to get over an illness a few hours before competing in barrel racing at the Rodeo of the Ozarks.

Etbauer admitted sometimes it can be difficult blending in at a rodeo. After all, she’s the wife of a rodeo legend in five-time world champion saddle bronc rider Billy Etbauer.

“You can’t go anywhere with Billy without getting recognized,” Etbauer said, laughing. “I always tease him. He’s like Elvis of the rodeo world.”

Profile

Hollie Etbauer

Age: 45 (Her birthday is today)

Hometown: Edmond, Okla.

Notable: Competes in barrel racing, which she began doing as a kid. A star rider and middle distance runner in high school, she turned down several rodeo scholarship offers to run track at Oklahoma State. Her husband is five-time world champion saddle bronc rider Billy Etbauer. Mother of three children.

However, Etbauer is far from the rodeo’s version of Priscilla Presley. The mother of three has made a name for herself while riding a 13-year-old stallion named PC Frosty Bid.

At one time, Etbauer stayed at home in Edmond, Okla., to take care of three children as her famous husband traveled around the country and collected more than $3 million in career earnings.

But Etbauer, who turns 45 today, is an accomplished barrel racer who competed at the Springdale rodeo on Friday night. It didn’t matter that she felt sick, cold and a bit dizzy before the event.

“I’m not going to just lope around there,” Etbauer said. “I’m here to try to win something.”

And in this case, Elvis took a backseat to his wife. As Etbauer tried to unwind before the barrel racing competition, her Hall-of-Fame husband took care of her stallion.

“I’m just here to help her,” Billy said. “I guess I do what I can to help her, but other than that I just stay out of the way and let her take care of it.”

On Her Own

Etbauer began riding as a kid despite being raised by parents who weren’t necessarily “horse people.”

Her father was one of 11 siblings, and there was only one horse for all of them to ride. Her mother, the daughter of a cowboy, grew up without a horse.

“I guess I was little bitty, wild about horses and drove them crazy until they finally got me a pony at 2,” Etbauer said. “And it never stopped after that.”

Etbauer admitted at first her brothers and her were “idiots on the horses” and needed help from the 4-H in Edmond to learn how to care for a horse.

However, she quickly fell in love with riding, specifically anything that involved being “on a horse at a high rate of speed.” While one of her brothers rode a horse named Silver, Etbauer often tried her best to get her horse Bertha to stop on command.

“I’m lucky to be alive probably because of the things that we did, and my parents didn’t know,” Etbauer said. “We swam our horses. We ran them around.”

Etbauer emerged as a star rider at Edmond Memorial High School, winning state and national championships in 1985-86. But she was also an accomplished middle distance runner and turned down several rodeo scholarships offers for a full ride to Oklahoma State to run track and field.

When Etbauer graduated from college in December 1991, her graduation present from her mother was a permit to compete in the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association.

But she still has reminders of her track days when she used to run 12 miles a day at Oklahoma State. The bottoms of her feet remain sore from all the running.

“To this day, I wear tennis shoes right up until I ride and then I put my boots on,” Etbauer said.

Family Affair

Etbauer met her husband during a rodeo event at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Okla., in the fall of 1992. It was a trying year for the couple.

Her mother, Jackie, passed away in the spring, and Billy won his first saddle bronc riding world championship that same year.

Only a few weeks after they met, Billy earned $101,531 for winning the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.

The couple married two years later, and as Etbauer put it, it has been a “fun ride” together.

“I don’t know very many people that get to do what they want to,” Etbauer said.

“Billy is passionate about anything on a horse. He has been able to do it his whole life, and I’ve pretty much been the same way.”

Etbauer said she and her husband try to film her rides, so they can analyze them when they’re back home. But Billy said there’s not much advice he can give his wife about barrel racing since that wasn’t where he earned his reputation.

“I’m just better off to be quiet and drive the truck,” Billy joked.

Billy said it helps being married to a fellow rider, and now their 14-year-old daughter, Jacie, is looking to join the family business and compete in rodeos.

Perhaps she takes after her mother.

“I didn’t really ride when I was pregnant because I just didn’t figure it was worth it,” Etbauer said. “But as soon as I could ride, I was back on.”

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