The New Rodeo : With Sequins and Saddles, This Drill Team Is Ready to Ride

Country Spice is not a rawhide-scented after-shave or a secret ingredient from an old family recipe. It is a new phenomenon on the rodeo circuit: a drill team of experienced horsewomen who have combined their love for riding with a touch of show biz, performing precision drills in rodeos, horse shows and fund-raising equestrian events.

“We really enjoy the precision,” says Gigi Flicek, team co-founder. “It offers a challenge in that it’s a skill.”

10 Members

There are 10 members in this diverse group, including a former rodeo queen, an education counselor, several grandmothers and a ranch foreman. They range in age from mid-20s to “none of your business.”

Dressed in bright matching red, white and blue sequined outfits and wearing makeup and white gloves, the drill team provides a pleasant contrast to gruff cowboys who do the bronco busting, calf roping and bull riding.

But there’s still a certain amount of risk involved, Flicek said. With 1,000-pound animals racing together and often riding right at one another, “you have to be alert and constantly watch the other riders as well as what you’re doing.”

Flicek, who rode on a Palm Springs drill team as a youngster and was the force behind the creation of Country Spice, says the drill team experience was novel for most Spice members, who were unaccustomed to collaborating with other riders.

“Unlike other disciplines of riding, which are mostly between the horse and rider,” she says, “this is between horse and rider and teammate.”

In the week before its next performance--the 31st annual Stagecoach Days celebration next Saturday and Sunday in the team’s hometown of Banning--Country Spice is practicing in the A. C. Dysart arena at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains.

For a typical performance, the theme song to “Dallas” or “Rocky” blares over the public address system, while Spice team members race single-file into the show ring, sequins glittering and horses’ hoofs thundering.

‘Wagon Wheel’ Circles

Riders, at the sound of a whistle, break into “wagon wheel” circles, precision crisscrosses and other drill patterns, coming to a halt in the center of the ring and saluting the audience.

The ride hasn’t always been so smooth for the team.

“It didn’t seem like we were ever going to get it together,” recalls Georgia Craig, a no-nonsense horsewoman who has “ridden all of my life” and owns Western Rodeo Wear in Banning. “I used to come home mad every time.”

Country Spice moved fast from its modest beginning four years ago in a back-yard arena. Soon the team members found themselves under the floodlights with little experience under their fancy Western belts.

“It started out as a get-together,” recalls Joan Kennedy, the group’s first president and co-founder with Flicek. “I don’t think any of us took it as seriously as it got. We figured down the line in two years or so we might be ready.”

Chance Came Sooner

But in just two months, Country Spice got a chance to perform in a horse show in nearby Riverside.

“They were nice enough to let us (perform) during their lunch break,” Kennedy recalls, laughing.

That event was the team’s chance to see if it had the right stuff to put together a precision drill team, “like the Canadian Mounted Police,” Kennedy says. “When you look at something like that, you get goose bumps. That was the idea in the beginning.”

Although the first show was a success, the team still had a way to go. The riders missed cues and went in different directions, and, Kennedy notes, “you didn’t know what your partner was going to do.”

Expanded Their Wardrobe

But the early work was encouraging enough that Spice members bought accessories and new costume material to expand their performance wardrobe. (Team member Linda Anderson makes most of the outfits.)

In their fancy duds, Country Spice members looked like seasoned professionals, even if their confidence was trailing behind. A month later, the team was invited to perform in a rodeo--for pay.

“We said we weren’t good enough,” Kennedy says. But the promoter needed the group because another team had dropped out. “He was desperate,” she says with a laugh.

That show was a “good experience” Kennedy remembers. “Horses bumped; one rider fell off; two horses got colic. But I’ve got to say we had a ball. We camped out, ate together and many of the husbands were there (creating) a sense of family.”

To help smooth the rough edges, Country Spice enlisted Wilma Tate, a member of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Though she is “in her 80s,” Flicek said, Tate occasionally coaches the team and even performed with the group at one show.

Helped Group Cohesion

“She helped us to see the overall performance,” Flicek says. “From her expertise, she could see the errors. We all rode individually before, but she helped us ride as a group.”

A few horses still get a touch of dance fever when there’s a crowd and the music starts to play. But now the riders know how to keep a tight rein.

That discipline and control, that sense of order also developed after a near tragic episode in the rodeo ring, Kennedy recalls: “Right before we were to perform, a kid (rodeo rider) got bucked off. We thought he was dead. It looked like he broke his neck.”

Just after the mishap, rodeo officials asked the stunned members of Country Spice to start their routine immediately to distract the audience from the rider and his injuries.

“We were trembling, Val (Nelson) had tears in her eyes and one girl was sick and kept saying ‘I can’t do this,’ ” Kennedy says, recalling that Flicek suggested the group gather and say a prayer to help “keep our minds together.”

Moment of Prayer

Concentration is more important than it might seem, because “it can be dangerous out there,” Kennedy notes, adding that since the incident--in which the cowboy was not seriously injured--group members now pause for a moment of prayer before each performance.

Though they have polished their act at events ranging from the Palm Springs Rodeo to the annual Special Olympics Equestrian benefit show in Pomona, the members of Country Spice are still sometimes saddled with the unexpected. But now they believe they can overcome almost any adversity during a drill.

“Now, we can regroup and continue on,” Craig says, offering her own painful experience as an example. “Once, during a performance, my horse went down. . . . The girls closed a circle around me and corralled my horse. I got my hat on, got back on and we carried on.”

Next weekend, the team will carry on with the Stagecoach Days parade Saturday morning at 11. Saturday and Sunday, Country Spice will perform its drills between rodeo events, which begin at 2 p.m.

Stagecoach Days carnival: 11 a.m. to midnight next Saturday, noon to 10 p.m. Sunday; about 30 miles west of Palm Springs on Interstate 10 at 1100 S. 22nd St., Banning. For information on Stagecoach Days, call (714) 849-4695.