Professional barrel racer visits Nebraska

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) - Mid-Plains Community College in North Platte welcomed professional barrel racer and motivational speaker Amberley Snyder Tuesday afternoon to share her story.

Snyder started barrel racing when she was seven years old and was a top prospect in high school. In her senior year, she qualified for the National High School Finals Rodeo in pole bending in 2009. She also won the National Little Britches Rodeo Association All-Around Cowgirl World Championship.

In January of 2010, tragedy struck as Snyder was on her way to the Denver Stock Show and Rodeo. Snyder was looking down at her road map when her truck swerved. She attempted to get back into her lane but ended up rolling her truck. She was ejected from the vehicle and then slammed into a fence post which broke her back.

Doctors performed over five hours of emergency surgery when Snyder was told she would never walk again. The accident did not stop her from competing.

“I was involved in a rollover truck accident which of course left me in my chair. So I had to return to competing in rodeo with a seatbelt on my saddle and I am the only paralyzed professional barrel racer in the United States. So I get to share my story you know what it took to get back on a horse some adventures afterward, a few mountains that you climb, and hopefully that everyone in the audience can gain strength from that and hope knowing whatever happens in their lives,” Snyder said.

Snyder also has a film out about her life on Netflix called “Walk. Ride. Rodeo” that was released in March of 2019. She described the long process of the script and idea from moving from company to company before getting into the hands of Netflix.

“Yeah, I mean simple right there are a lot of things that go into that process of being able to re-watch your life getting now put on screen and knowing that they are going to ‘Hollywoodize’ some things. I mean I would say that it is 85-90 percent accurate, I mean it’s pretty dang close. They just like to make things bigger. The lows are lower, the highs are higher, add in tears, add in grunting, add in love stories right they want to add in that kind of things but they did a good job,” Synder said.

Snyder continues to travel the country sharing her story and has become one of the most desired social influencers and motivational speakers in sports.