34 • The WRANGLER • August, 2024
Elaine Hollings:
As cowgirl as they come.
I
n 1951, the hospital in White Sulphur Springs,
Montana did not deliver babies. That was why Elaine
Hollings was born in Townsend, Montana, about 50
miles away.
The daughter of a cowboy and a cowgirl and the
eldest of three children, Elaine grew up on the back of a
horse. Her dad broke and raised horses when he wasn't
working up at a mountain cow camp, and when he was,
Elaine worked with him.
"I rode with him. I remember getting up early, sleeping
till we got to a gate, then get out and open the gate,
then go back to sleep until the next gate until we got
where we were going," Elaine recalled.
Youth rodeo was not the industry back then like it is
today, but Elaine would ride at local events starting
around age ten. Like her mother, she was a barrel racer.
When she got older, she began high school rodeoing,
making the high school finals.
After graduating from high school, Elaine attended
the now obsolete National College of Business in Rapid
City, South Dakota for a year. Elaine did one more year
at Sheridan College in Sheridan, Wyoming, where she
breakaway roped and barrel raced.
Following her college career, Elaine got married and
had two children, Shane and Kari Day. She always had
horses, but when her kids were young didn't travel. She
hauled Shane to high school and other junior rodeos,
and after they were out of the house started up amateur
rodeoing again.
Elaine's son Shane went on to have two daughters,
Riata and Wacey Day. Both are as cowgirl as their
grandmother. Riata is finishing a master's program at
the University of Wyoming and won the first round of
the 2024 CNFR in the goat-tying. Wacey is in a radiology
program at Laramie County Community College and
qualified for the CNFR in 2022 and 2023. Both have
ridden horses brought up by Elaine.
In 2000 Elaine bought her permit and started pro-
rodeoing. She raised barrel horses, but it wasn't until
2011 she started running Flying Smoke Olena, "Fly," and
he became her main mount.
"We raised the horse, but I didn't think he'd be barrel
racing material, being 16.2. But he ended up being an
amazing barrel horse," Elaine said. "We bred one of
our mares and got Fly, and he took me places I never
By Erin Rees
Back When They Bucked Back When They Bucked
Elaine barrel racing on her horse Cotton, in 1966.
Elaine competing at Cheyenne Frontier Days in 2015.
