THOROUGHLY. MODERN. COWGIRL.
She grew up on Arizona’s famous Bar U Bar Ranch and has been riding and showing great horses ever since. Today, Laurel Denton lives the ultimate Western life while excelling in the sports she loves.
LAUREL DENTON FROWNED. Her horse wasn’t stopping as well as he ordinarily did. In the warm-up pen that day, along with other competitors, was the trainer who typically won this working cow horse class. Laurel rode over to him and asked what he thought. He made a suggestion or two, then left for the main arena, where he laid down a reining pattern and fence run that earned cheers from the crowd—and a big score.
“Then it was her turn,” recalls Tom Kirastoulis, owner of Chocolate Chic N Nic, the horse Laurel was riding that day at the Arizona National Quarter Horse Show in Scottsdale. “She was nervous and went in with a ‘Well, we’ll see how it goes’ attitude. Then everything she and the horse did was like a dream, the run of a lifetime, and she came out with this huge smile. She beat that guy, too—plus everyone else in the class. It was incredible. I tell you, that woman can ride with anyone.”
And so she can. Laurel Denton, a modern-day cowgirl who still lives on the sprawling ranch she grew up on, has been competing successfully for 50 years. The life she shares with her husband, farrier and photographer Barry Denton, blends the best of traditional Western ways and contemporary competitive spirit. One of the industry’s most respected horsewomen, Laurel is a multi-carded judge and a longtime volunteer on American Quarter Horse Association committees. Those who know her best, though, speak of the passion she has for what she does, and her kindness to all people and animals, especially horses.
And that’s where our story begins.
‘I Want a Horse With Laurel’
Brinley Thomas grew up on a ranch not far from the famous Bar U Bar owned by Laurel’s parents, Sonny and Sissie Walker, in Yavapai County, Arizona (see “About the Bar U Bar,” page 66). Brinley went on to become a school principal, but longed to reconnect with horses in her retirement. A bad back kept her out of the saddle, but as a volunteer with the Arizona Quarter Horse Association’s 10-day Sun Circuit in Scottsdale in January of 2015, she found herself in a motorhome parked next to the warm-up ring.
“I watched a lot of trainers out the window of that motorhome, including Laurel,” she recalls, noting that not everything that happens in a warmup pen is pleasing to see. “Then one night I had an ‘aha!’ realization: I’d love to have a horse with Laurel. She had all the qualities I was looking for—a lifetime of horse experience, superb riding skills, and unlimited patience and compassion for the horses she was riding. If someone was going to campaign a horse that I owned, I wanted it to be Laurel.”
Today Laurel calls Lenas Last Time, the horse she and Barry found for Brinley, “the greatest I’ve ever ridden. He can run a cow horse pattern and turn around and win a ranch riding class.” A finalist with trainer Corey Cushing in the open division of the National Reined Cow Horse Association’s 2012 Snaffle Bit Futurity, “Smithers” is the latest in a long string of successful show horses under Laurel’s guidance. Though now she specializes in cow horse, reining, and ranch riding events, she grew up doing it all, including halter, Western horsemanship and equitation, hunters, barrel racing, pole bending, you name it.
You might say she had the ideal oldschool foundation.
Teachers, Mentors
“We called her the White Knight,” says world champion trainer Al Dunning, who as a young man in the 1950s rode with Arizona legend Jim Paul Sr. “Lolli—that’s what everyone called her—came and worked with us, and she was outstanding as a youth in both halter and all different performance events. Which is how you become a real horseman,” he adds.
But…White Knight? “Yes. She wore all white.”
Laurel confirms this. “My first big-time show horse, the gelding Irish Buzz, had roan in his flanks and high white on his legs. Some judges back
then didn’t like all that white, so we tried to come up with an equitation suit for me that would complement him. My mother chose white. And I mean everything was white—halter, hat, boots. A shortcut was a can of spray paint instead of leather dye. My mother knew all the tricks.”
Laurel says Jim Paul, who was inducted into the NRCHA’s Hall of Fame in 2007, “opened up a whole new world for me in the foundation of my knowledge.” Other important influences included the iconic John Hoyt, Tony Amaral, and Don Dodge. Still, Laurel says her most important teachers were her parents, “both of whom were horsemen and cattlemen.”
Today, she adds, “my mentor is my husband. He’s my best friend and biggest fan.”
True enough, but it wasn’t always that way.
Meeting Not-Cute
“We didn’t like each other,” Barry Denton says flatly, recalling the day he and Laurel met. Summoned to the Bar U Bar in 1991 to consult on hoof-crack problems, he found himself rolling his eyes. “Laurel asked what I thought about the horse in question, and I said, ‘You’re supposed to be the most famous horsewoman in Arizona, and you had to call me in?’” Barry fixed the hoof issue and went on to handle others over the next four or five years, “but we still just barely tolerated each other,” he adds, only half joking.
At one point, Laurel’s mom started
coming out when he arrived instead of Laurel, and one day she asked why the farriery cost less when she handled it than when Laurel did.
“Because I charge according to attitude, and Laurel aggravates me,” he told her. Finally, he asked Laurel out to dinner just to see what she was really like. And, he adds, “once we got talking seriously, we found it was pretty easy to be around each other.”
Laurel says this is true. “At the end of the dinner, neither of us was done talking, sharing,” she says thoughtfully. “We were both on an emotional high for being able to share so many things we both were passionate about.”
They’ve now been married 20 years, a period Barry calls “our blessed and goofy life.” He appreciates that she’s as hard-working and fun-loving as he is, yet every inch a lady.
“She can be doing ranch chores and covered in mud or manure, but if we have to go somewhere that night, she’ll be the most beautiful girl in the room,” he says, adding she’s also a fantastic cook. “We have our main meal at lunch—chicken or beef or pork, with potatoes, vegetables, a salad, dessert, the works.”
Laurel says she learned how to balance work and “real” cooking by watching her mother, who prepared meals for an entire roundup crew— cowboys, cattle-truck drivers—all while working herself.
“I prep the day before,” Laurel explains, “so when I come in at noon,