Nine months ago - even a few months ago - Wendy Caban wasn't sure whether she would even qualify to compete at the Australian Bushmen's Campdraft and Rodeo Association National Finals.
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She certainly wasn't expecting to be crowned the finals barrel racing champion.
The Moree cowgirl was one of the fairytale stories of the finals.
After having her beloved champion mare - Jay Lo Working - out of action for a good part of the season and only just sneaking into the finals by a few hundred dollars, Caban came out and won all three rounds to win the finals aggregate honours.
It was a remarkable comeback with the first round of the finals Jay Lo's first run in around nine months.
And the end of a long road that started when she underwent knee surgery.
Not long after COVID hit. They then got a couple of rodeos back and Jay Lo "broke down again".
After returning from that, Caban just "wasn't happy." Call it mother's intuition but she knew something just wasn't right.
Eventually her local vet in Moree suggested she either get her in foal or take her to Gatton and get a full MRI.
"I said 'I need to think about it'," Caban said.
"I couldn't sleep, I was like there's something wrong."
"So I took her up there and had the full MRI and she had two compressed vertebrae in her neck so they injected the neck."
Four days later the lameness had gone; she was a completely different horse.
Caban couldn't believe how quick the turnaround was, questioning them when they told her that she'd be able to start trotting her up in four days.
That was on November 9 last year.
In the meantime she also had her own health issues, blowing three discs out and crushing a nerve in her back competing last April.
"I didn't fall off or anything, I just roped my calf and my horse sort of stopped funny and I was just like 'wow that really hurt'," Caban recalled.
"And then I got on and barrel raced and was cooling my barrel race horse down and my leg was just on fire."
When she got off she "couldn't walk" and ended up in Roma hospital.
"The pain was next level, I've never experienced that before," she said.
It kept her out of the saddle for a while.
It does still give her a bit of trouble roping, so she doesn't do much of that these days, but barrel racing is fine.
"I can just stand up and get away from the pain," she said.
The multiple barrel racing champion kept it mum that she was bringing Jay Lo back for the finals. Long-time fellow barrel racer Tania Schiller was about the only one she told.
Naturally she wasn't expecting too much going in.
"I hadn't run her before her at all," she said.
"I was just focusing on getting her fit, so just trotting her and swimming her."
"I knew she was good enough don't get me wrong, but the first night I was more cautious trying to feel if she was sore or not.
"Once the first night was over and she pulled up fine I was like 'righto let's go'."
They clocked under 18 seconds all three runs, Caban the only competitor to do that.
As satisfying as all that was, it is more that "she's happy again".
The Caban name also featured on the competitors list for the junior finals with daughter Dekota qualifying for her first finals in the under-11 barrel race.
"She was so excited. She didn't sleep the night before," Caban said.
"She knocked a drum in the first round and then she was second in the second round and third in third round."
It saw her place third in the average.
