Brittaney Logan
Five years ago, Brittaney Logan was a city girl who didn’t know a thing about riding horses. In fact, she says she was just being polite when she agreed to mount one while visiting a ranch owned by a friend who is a competitive bronco rider active in the
Black cowboy community.
“He basically put me on a horse, and I fell in love right then and there,” says Brittaney, whose friends call her Britt
Brat. “Ever since then, I’ve been riding horses.”
After completing some training, she went on to become one of the founding members of the Cowgirls of Color, an allfemale competition group of Black women from the Maryland and Washington, D.C., areas. The group made a name for itself in the relay team competition at the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, the nation’s only Black rodeo, in 2016, going on to win third place in the category in 2019. The Cowgirls have since disbanded, but Brittaney says she plans to continue competing—no small feat considering she nearly lost her life in a riding accident in
May 2020. During a trail ride, her horse’s hoof slipped on some rocks while jumping out of a small creek, and the horse fell on her.
“So, my horse crushed six of my ribs and my lungs collapsed while I was underwater,” she says. She was rushed to a hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery. During her ongoing recovery, Brittaney, who had also competed in barrel racing and had been training as a mounted shooter before the onset of the pandemic, has taken up some gardening and restoring old furniture for fun.
“I didn’t want to be in a depressed state because I couldn’t ride my horse,” she says. “There was COVID, and I was in pain, so to avoid depression, I just had to concern myself with something.”
Brittaney says she looks forward to competing again once the COVID-19 threat subsides. She hopes her presence on the competition circuit will pay homage to Black cowgirls who have paved the way, like Sharon Braxton (see page 24). She also hopes to inspire more Black women to bring their “Black girl magic” to the sport.
“We’re not just prissy, we’re not just scared to get our hair wet. We’re not like this stereotype [out there] of Black women who don’t like to be outdoors and things like that,” she says. “It’s definitely a good thing to bring exposure to that!”