Ep. 71 - All Around Cowgirl, Rancher, Actress, & Huntress, Carly Twisselman

We were introduced to Carly Twisselman in Episode 16 of the That Western Life podcast with Jenna Smeenk. Growing up on the coast of central California, a place where her family has deep roots in the western world. Heavily involved in all aspects of rodeo from barrel racing to roping. Carly’s love of sharing stories led her to a degree in mass communications from UCLA, and has been a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild since 2010, she has been in television series, movies, and is a part of the RIDE-TV team!

“It’s fun because we haven’t planned this, but we are having a great lineup of broadcast personalities,” says host Katie Schrock.

Carly’s Horsepower

Carly has been riding ranch horses her whole life, and as she got into the rodeo ranks she started purchasing running bred horses to cross to create her barrel racing and roping horses. Starting her breeding program just a few years ago due to the elevated prices of the high-performance bloodlines.

Her current barrel horse is a Streaking Six and Dash for Cash bloodlines so Carly decided to start her breeding program around her by flushing embryos and having recipient mares. She has a three-year old from that mare that she is looking to futurity later this year, and a two-year old out of her rope horse. She has Dash for Cash, Slick by Design, and a No Pressure On Me babies all coming this year.

Carly’s passion has always been roping with team roping and breakaway roping. When she looked to moving in to prorodeo, she realized barrel racing was her only real option. In fact, in high school and college, she just ran her rope horses. It wasn’t until she took a pro career seriously that she started to look for a barrel racing bred mount.

“I am very excited that a lot of these rodeos have breakaway roping being added,” says Carly, who has a solid young horse in the breakaway roping that she’s excited to get into the arena on.

Rodeo

First purchasing her prorodeo card in 2013, Carly was a bit late to the game because she was focusing on roping at the amateur rodeos. Despite barrel racing her whole life, she never took it seriously beyond the amateur rodeos, and really wanted to go rodeo and travel the country trying the prorodeo deal out.

“Red Bluff, in my home state, was one of the first pro rodeo’s to have breakaway roping and the turn out was so cool! The turnout was amazing and so many people that I haven’t seen since the college level that … had the chance to come back,” says Carly. “Opening up doors for women and showing off talent that you don’t normally get to see in prorodeo is huge for the sport… as well as the addition of another women’s event in prorodeo.”

“I had a horse, I actually used to lope for a cutter, and I loved this horse that I would lope all the time for her, and I wanted her and he wanted to sell her because she was too hot for the cutting pen,” says Carly. That horse was trained by Carly and started doing well in jackpots, then in the amateur rodeos, and so Carly got her prorodeo card and filled her permit on her. Today, that horse has been taken over by Carly’s fiancé as a steer wrestling horse.

“Well I want a faster horse, it’s hard to keep up in the pro’s,” says Carly who jokes that it becomes a never ending cycle of looking up bloodlines, looking at horses, and trying to get to the next level either by buying or breeding.

Charm is Carly’s main mount and is a half-sister to Hailey Kinsel’s good palomino mare Sister. While her plan was to hit the rodeo trail hard last year, everything in the northwest were cancelled and those that were happening far away, so they took a break and hit a couple jackpots instead. Spring 2021 is the plan to get back at it and get Charm fully seasoned as she rolls into her seven year old year.

“I’m excited for her future, she’s really fast, and we just need to get her seasoned.”

Carly’s fiancé, Levi, is a steer wrestler from Oklahoma and they met at Rodeo Salinas, so the two spend a lot of time going back and forth between those two places, hitting as many rodeos as they can. They spend winters in Texas, spring in California and the summer in the Pacific Northwest; those are there three destinations throughout the year except the 4th of July run which is all over.

Fun Fact: There’s been one horse to compete in two events at the NFR and it was a husband-wife duo that competed in both the barrel racing and the steer wrestling.

Barrel Horse Futurity

“My palomino that I have now, when I first got her, I bought her in the middle of her futurity year so we went to four of them and I had no idea what I was doing,” says Carly with a laugh. Currently, she’s preparing her first baby as she’s getting ready to go into the futurity world!

Levi broke the colt for Carly and on her second ride, she pushed cattle for four hours in canyons, and the next week she was working the herd and preg-checking and so many things - she is a no fear kind of horse! Her attitude is one that makes Carly really excited for the futurity year.

Balancing a Career and ProRodeo

“My whole life, I was torn between the two passions. I wanted to act…and I love rodeo and the ranching lifestyle and my horses. I always thought that I was going to have to choose because I didn’t think I could do both,” says Carly, who thought she would have to give up rodeo in college when she got into college at UCLA. “I was just planning on leaving my horses at home and not rodeoing and I did that the first year and it was the most depressing year of my life.”

The game-changer was when she found out that people could rodeo independently - all she had to do was get permission from the Dean of Students at UCLA. Unsure of how it would go over, with her university being in the heart of Los Angeles, but was able to get a meeting with the Dean of Students who had actually been to a rodeo. She thought it was a cool idea and signed the papers, allowing Carly to rodeo the rest of her years at UCLA.

“You can basically do what you really want as long as you try. Don’t ever put a road block in front of yourself, because usually you’re the one doing it,” Carly advises.

She was able to go into rodeoing at the amateur level as she was looking for ways to do acting. Then an opportunity literally “fell into” her lap by the future owners of RIDE-TV. They had heard she was pursuing a career in acting and came from a strong rodeo background, and they were looking for a host for their horse channel.

“This is too good to be true,” Carly thought. She ended up going with them to New York to talk to Verizon and to get the network live and became the host of her own show, “This Old Horse,” where they share the stories of famous horses.

There isn’t a lot of scheduling conflicts with rodeo since everyone is involved in both industries, so they are able to work around schedules. Most of the shows are filmed on location, especially for horses that are living, so the show requires traveling and interviews with people who worked with these famous horses.

RODEO RULE CHANGE

“I would eliminate all of the fines, because the fines are ridiculous. If you don’t pay by Tuesday at 3:00 pm central time…. ya anyways! Or the surcharges that are … always randomly added to the fees,” says Carly with a laugh. “I would say all of the fines that these associations collect for the WPRA and PRCA, I want to first know where they go and second have a rodeo at the end of the year that all of those fined can compete in for money!”

Rodeo Definition: Buddy System
Down the rodeo trail, you want to have a buddy go with you and it’s nice to have someone travel with. Carly has traveled with Jenna Smeenk, and the rules are that either have to travel with another female (female-female) and it has to be a spouse, brother or dad (a one degree removed relation). Carly had tried to travel with a team roping cousin but they wouldn’t let it happen.
What it means is that you can enter a rodeo and get drawn up together. The problem right now is that Carly, who has had five wedding date changes due to COVID, travels with her fiancé and has issues with them being drawn up on different nights and performances.

Ranching Legacy

Carly jokes that her family is huge and that “no one ever left the area,” and is actually the seventh-generation to be on the ranch! Being outdoors, working hard, earning your keep, and being the first granddaughter of the family, Carly says her dad raised her as a third son. Whatever is on a ranch, she’s done, and contributes that to why she’s a strong, independent woman who can take care of herself.

“Just a great lifestyle, it’s definitely hard work, but the reward outweighs any of the difficult times,” says Carly. “Also the beauty, to live out here - my neighbors are literally my grandparents, uncles, cousins, and, as far as you can see, is just open land… I just have a great family!”

Still involved in a variety of respects on the family ranch, April is a big month for the Twisselman ranch to preg-check cows and some shipping, which can make spring rodeo a juggle. The operation is a family ordeal and they all work together.

“It’s fun … and definitely different than how most people live and grow up because they probably don’t work with their family,” says Carly with a laugh. Farming and ranching is extremely important to the Twisselman family, the state of California and the country beyond. Education and promotion of the industry outside of the industry is important to help educate voters before they get to the polls.

Huntress

“I haven’t had anyone be ‘mean’ per say, which is surprising as I have a lot of friends in the gun industry that has seen it,” says Carly about her passion for hunting. “As far as hunting goes… we all consume meat. I think hunting goes back to the beginning of human kind and the need to provide your family with food. There’s no more humane way than getting the food yourself.”

Not everyone who purchases meat at a grocery store really understands what it’s like to harvest an animal and Carly shares a bit of insight in regards to the work, effort, conservation efforts, and emotional process of harvesting and preparing the animal.

“You do more justice to that animal than anyone who is just eating a hamburger or some fish,” says Carly. “Hunting is also one of the biggest contributors to animal conservation - so much money goes back into conservation that many people don’t know.”

Further education shows that hunters and the hunting industries are a big reason as to why animals are still around. With that being said, Carly encourages you to look at not just one side, but both sides, to fully understand a situation to develop your own opinion and thoughts on it.

“There’s so much pride when it’s an animal you raise or an animal you process,” says Katie. “There is so much that hunters do that our world would be terrible if they didn’t do what they do.”

“I think it goes with anything in life, when you have to work really hard for something, it’s so much more gratifying when you accomplish or attain something …. it imprints on you and your memory,” says Carly. While it is hard for some people to understand, but if you think about it, it’s something we have done for thousands of years to survive.

Check out past That Western Life podcast episodes as well!