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Emma Smith has moved into the Resistol Rookie lead the hard way, cashing at five straight weeks of rodeos and winning two of them outright in Montana. Through Aug. 30 Smith is No. 1 in the Resistol Rookie standings at $58,497, $1,462 clear of Morgan Bagnell. When the board was last checked here on July 21, Smith was No. 3 and $32,215 back. The month turned in Montana. Smith won the Bozeman Stampede in Bozeman, Aug.

Twenty-seven ProRodeo barrel races run between August 31 and September 7, with $191,027 added and the Labor Day weekend carrying almost all of it. Ellensburg is the richest barrel race on the slate at $40,000 and the week’s only other Cinch Playoff Series stop besides Walla Walla. Its first round has already paid, and Hayle Gibson-Stillwell’s share of fifth there is enough to put the world lead back in her hands. The Colorado State Fair & Rodeo in Pueblo is already final.

Kathy Grimes won $17,187 and climbed five spots clear of the NFR bubble, Carlee Otero overtook the world lead, and Cordy Cox and Shez French N Famous won the 1D championship at the 30th Alberta Barrel Racing Association Finals, all recapped on this week’s episode of The Rundown on The Money Barrel.

More often than not, it’s Wanda Harper Bush’s barrel racing background that is referenced when noting her legendary status in rodeo, but she was an all-around extraordinaire thanks to her Texas ranch roping start and the all-hands-on-deck approach ranchers took throughout the World War years.

Martha Josey’s love of fast horses is matched only by her passion for fashion, and a propensity for creating magical combinations of the two. Her flair for making rodeo glamorous has been there literally since day one of her barrel racing career. “I was a senior in high school,” she said. “I went to a rodeo in Shreveport and sat up in the stands. Fay Ann Horton, who is still alive to this day, was running barrels.

The Jerry Ann Taylor Best Dressed Award is a prestigious one handed out to barrel racers and voted on by fans at the National Finals Rodeo in December. Meet the women who have won this award since its inception in 1995, and see some of their best looks. As a bonus, we’ve included the winners from the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo’s installment of the award in February. Both awards are brought to barrel racers by the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Museum.

Fifteen ProRodeo barrel races finish between August 24 and August 30, carrying $115,650 in added money, and three Cinch Playoff Series stops account for $68,000 of it. Piper Cordes opened the week by winning Range Days at Rapid City in 16.94 seconds, a $2,863 check that lifts her four spots to 52nd. Kathy Grimes, 16th and $1,338 outside the NFR cut, leads Golden Spike at 16.80 and sits third at Kitsap Stampede.

Carlee Otero won the points race to Puyallup Rodeo and leads the field of 24 Cinch Playoffs qualifiers to the September 10-13 event. On Aug. 4 the Cinch Playoff Series board read Hayle Gibson-Stillwell 1,105.76, Otero 1,045.13. Twenty days later Otero sits at 1,334.38, Gibson-Stillwell at 1,147.51, and the order across the top is Otero, Emily Beisel, Gibson-Stillwell.

Andrea Busby won the average at the Caldwell Night Rodeo on Saturday in Caldwell, Idaho, riding Jets Top Gun to a 33.74 on two head worth $11,906, the richest barrel racing purse on the week’s schedule and the gelding’s first short round win since surgery. Busby, of Brock, Texas, was third in the first round, tied for the win in the short round and won the two head average. Benny was the obvious choice for Caldwell.

Cassie Morton and SS I Am Misty generated $59,376 in Ruby Buckle payouts at Perry, Georgia, Kathy Grimes ran a 16.31 at Burley, Idaho, and Makenzie Mayes climbed five spots clear of the NFR bubble, all recapped on this week’s episode of The Rundown on The Money Barrel.