Everyday Wonder Women
Each week, I sit down with a woman you probably never heard of before—but trust me, by the end, you’ll be so glad you did. This is where we get real about the tough stuff women go through, the grit it takes to get through it, and the lessons they pick up along the way. It’s honest, inspiring, and full of stories you won’t forget.
Everyday Wonder Women
Episode 6: Jan Youren- Bronc riding her way into the record books
This week, I’m bringing you a conversation with an absolute legend—Jan Youren. She holds the Guinness World Record for the longest career in bareback bronc riding (yes, really!), and her stories are just as wild and inspiring as you’d expect. We talk about how she got started, what it’s like to break a whole bunch of bones and still get back on the horse, and why she kept riding well into her 70s. I also share a little about how fear shows up in everyday life—and how meeting Jan reminded me to stop letting it run the show.
Okay, I had way too much fun with this interview. Our guest this week is a total legend and I think you're going to love her just as much as I did. So here's how it happened.
Me (Stacee):I was recently at this amazing event called Art of the Cowgirl. It happens every spring in Wickenburg, Arizona, which is just down the road from my house, and it's basically four full days of celebrating western women. We're talking horse competitions, hands-on workshops, inspiring talks, loads of booths featuring western wear, artwork, all kinds of crafts and, to be honest, I'm kind of obsessed with secretly wanting to be a cowgirl. I mean, they're just so cool. They can ride a horse at full speed, they get to wear the best clothes and hats and they can even back up a horse trailer. It was there that I met Jan Youren, who just so happens to hold the Guinness World Record for the longest career in bareback bronc riding, and let me tell you she is a total hoot. So saddle up and come with me to meet my brand new friend, Jan.
Me (Stacee):I'm very excited to sit down with you. I don't know much about you, Jan, other than you won the Guinness World Record.
Jan:I'm in the Guinness Book of World Records. Yes, for riding bareback bronc riding longer than anybody else ever has.
Me (Stacee):How many years did you ride broncs?
Jan:Well, I broke my own record four years. They put me in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2000. I guess I broke it for five years. They put me in in 2001,. And I rode until 2006.
Me (Stacee):Wow
Jan:Well, my dad broke a lot of horses. You know everybody would bring my dad horses to break. And I have an older brother but when he was a kid he had Perthes disease of the hip sockets and he was in a brace, wore a brace for a year about.
Jan:I don't know how long. I was just a kid I'm two and a half years younger than he is, so I don't remember. It seemed like a long time for me, but anyhow, my dad broke a lot of horses and he'd take the rough off of them and then he'd give them to me. And I mean from the time I was eight, nine years old, really and I didn't have a saddle. I couldn't have been big enough saddle anyhow, so I rode bareback and I got well grounded in hitting the dirt, hitting the ground.
Jan:So then, when I was 11, almost 12, my dad came home. My dad rodeoed. He rode bareback broncs and roped and once in a while he rode out on a bull. But anyhow, he came home from rodeo one night and he said "boy, babe, I saw something you'd really like. And what's that? And he said, I saw some girls exhibition and bareback horses. He said three weeks later he put on the first full all-girl rodeo in Idaho. Your dad, my dad, did, and entered me. In every event. I had never even seen a barrel race at that time. It was just coming in.
Me (Stacee):What were the events?
Jan:And bareback and cow riding. We didn't ride bulls, who rode cows, bareback cow riding, calf roping, tie-down calf roping and team roping and a ribbon roping that was the other one ribbon roping. And so I, I rode my first bareback horse. Come out first bareback horse, old meathead. And old meathead just went out there and crow hopped, just jumped up and down the same and there was only five of us entered but two of them had bucked off so I was sitting third.
Jan:I thought I was cat's meow and so I went down. I was untying calves down there and this gal came running down and she said "Jan, your dad said you get a re-ride. And so I go up and dad's got my rigging on and everything and he said you better watch this and baby's going to be a little stout. Well, my dad never warned me of anything and he was definitely very stout. He popped me back off that rigging and I said when I come down down I plowed a fur you could have planted potatoes in with my face. My dad said he threw me so high in the air the birds built a nest in my pocket before he hit the ground. But anyhow, I rode again. I rode the next day and I got money and I rode my both my cows. So you, oh yeah.
Me (Stacee):And you were hooked.
Jan:Oh, I was hooked and I made $54 for 24 seconds work.
Me (Stacee):I thought I was on the road to riches and you were 11. 11, yeah, almost 12.
Jan:And so then, you know, like I said, I was on the road for many, many years, had a lot of riches, but not necessarily monetary ones.
Me (Stacee):but yeah, so you just stuck with it as you were growing up.
Jan:Oh yeah, and all my kids have been on broncs before they were born. The last one, I was 41 when he was born and I was five and a half months pregnant before I quit riding with him. He's a heck of a horse rider. His balance was great. I was so far in the lead when I quit and I still ended up fourth in the year. I didn't compete the last half of the year.
Me (Stacee):Wow, what was it like being around all the guys that do this. Did they give you a lot of grief
Jan:The first time we went to Cal Palace in San Francisco, the first time Cotton Rosser put that on. He added a lot of money. I mean he added $3,000. Of course we had to get on five-head of Bronx to do it in the 10 days. But Bruce Ford and I don't know if you know who bruce ford is, but he's been, I believe, seven times world champion and, uh, mickey young and they, you know they were there and bruce you know he said these girls should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, not out here bumping it up against a rigging. That is what his quote was and I will say this for bruce by the time we got done with that rodeo, he said these girls I came here poking fun at, I leave with the utmost respect for and bruce himself put on several competitions for us was your mindset to.
Me (Stacee):Did you think "I'll
Jan:No, I was doing something I loved and I'm gonna do the best I can do at it. And I have competed against daughters and granddaughters and in fact I see, I'll show you this picture that one there that's at Sierra Vista, Arizona. I was 60 years old and I beat two daughters and two granddaughters two days in a row. Now this one here. This is, that's a big yellow stud in Billings, Montana, wow, and I had a really good ride on him. I outscored everybody by 12 points but he was a stud. And when the pickup man came up alongside and I went to reach for the pickup man, he made a dive at the pickup horse and the pickup horse went out. Well, I landed with this arm out here like this. That's what this lump is here.
Jan:It broke that muscle in two and that was on Saturday and I had another horse to get on on Monday and I didn't figure it would work because it was dislocated by three and a half inches. It was hanging down way down, but I'm not one that's going to leg one out. So my husband was back there sitting there. He said, ", this rigging's not tight enough. I said, jim, I'm not going to be able to ride him anyhow, but I'm going to just get out the gate on him. You know Well, I got out the gate and it was working all right. But and it was working all right, but when the whistle blew, my riggin' was going over the head. I was right between his ears when the whistle blew and he threw his head up and broke my nose and broke my cheekbone.
Me (Stacee):How
Jan:Conan O'Brien asked me the same thing when I was on the Conan O'Brien show. I said a lot easier to name how many I haven't. I said I've got one rib that's never been broke and I never broke either leg. Only one rib that's never been broke, Most of them several times. And because bulls step on you, they're hard on ribs. But you know, and I've had eight breaks in my cheekbones, had my nose broke 14 times, I tell everybody I used to be good looking. They all just laugh at me, See.
Me (Stacee):Because you don't look like you've had your nose broken 14 times. Did you ever have a bad wreck where you thought you might die?
Jan:Yeah, a couple of them. A couple of them. When I broke my neck the first time.
Me (Stacee):You
Jan:Oh, my neck's been broke. I've got seven broken vertebrae in my neck. I broke my back three times time.
Me (Stacee):Just getting piled off?
Jan:Well, neck was sometimes hitting heads with a bull. They break your neck when their head's harder than mine, believe it or not. When I was on the Maury Povich show, he, he asked me the most bones I ever broke in one day. Well, that was in Miles City, Montana, and I was riding with I thought it was a pulled groin muscle. As it turned out, I had a blood clot the size of an egg in my leg and I didn't know that and I'd start a horse, and then I couldn't. My leg just wouldn't work anymore. And so I had told the pickup man at Miles City. I said "I don't know if my leg's going to work or not. I said, if my leg's not going to work, I said you guys just fall back and I'll just get off.
Jan:At that time I could still get off on a pickup man. And so I came out on this big Palomino horse and I started her and and the next jump, and the leg just wouldn't go. And so I started to let myself down and here's the pickup man right right beside me. Well, I'm already. You know, many of you girls ride two hands and both hands was here and I'm hanging down. I can't, they can't get me, and I hung on as long as I could and just barely touched the heels of the second pickup horse as he went, as I'm hollering at, get down, go, and I'm on my hands and knees. And here comes a third pickup horse and he saw me and he set the horse up and landed right on top of me on my hands and knees and I broke my collarbone, my, my shoulder blade, five ribs, three of them more than once, and I got up and walked out of the arena. Now, I'm not going to tell you I did it fast, I didn't, I didn't jump up and run out. But my daddy always told me to get out of the arena and die behind the chutes, don't die in the arena. Yeah, no, grandstanding, get up and get out.
Jan:And Joe Kelsey was a stock contractor and I went, you know, on my hands and knees, like that, when he got me. And so when I rolled up there on my knees and he pulled my legs down and I'd pull them back up, and he said, "jen, can't you straighten your legs? And I said yeah, and he said, well, why don't you? And I said because I don't like feeling my bones pop when I straighten them, and anyhow, eventually I got up and got out of the arena and they took me up to the hospital.
Jan:That's when I found out everything that was broken, everything. Well, there was nothing they could do for any of it. They couldn't wrap the ribs because of the collarbone and the shoulder blades, you know. They couldn't do anything. So they were going to keep me in the hospital and I said "no, I'm not staying in the hospital. I said all I got to do is go to bed and I said I can do that at home, I'm not going to do it here. Of course I didn't tell them. I was a long way from home, and so, anyhow, we were in Mile City, montana, and my oldest daughter and another friend her age were traveling with me and Cheyenne was on. So we left my old city and went to Cheyenne Frontier Days was on and you didn't go to bed no, I'm, and so, anyhow, we got down to Cheyenne and the girls went out. Well, I was going to be a good girl and and stay, you know, take care of myself. But I'm not tough enough to lay and hurt. I have a one-track mind. I got to get it on something else. So I got up and went down to the hitching post and down to the dance floor in the bar and I'm sitting down there and Jack Ward, who was a PRCA bareback rider, and he came up and he said "you want to dance? And I said yeah. And so it took me a while to get up, you know, and I kept my arm down like that.
Jan:The song just barely started a little bit, you know, and he said "you want to dance again? I said yeah, and that time he asked me. He said why do you keep your arm down against your side? And I said, oh, I've got some broken ribs just trying to protect them. Well, that time, before we started to dance, he worked his hand in underneath my arm and we just danced just a little bit, you know? He said I'm gonna go sit down, I'll buy you a drink. I said how you want to dance? He said lady, I can't stand feeling your bones pop under my hands I thought you shitting me, but you know, yeah,
Me (Stacee):oh,
Jan:Yeah, that has been said you know
Me (Stacee):What was it about bronc riding that made you get back on there is. What does it feel like when you're riding?
Jan:It is the biggest adrenaline rush you'll ever have. There's no drug in the world that can give you the high that does. I mean I've never taken drugs, but I know good and well there's no drug in the world that will ever give you that kind of a high. That adrenaline rush is unbelievable. You can move mountains with that and that's why you can ride when you're hurt. You can stand anything for six seconds.
Me (Stacee):So what's been the toughest part of your career?
Jan:Having to quit getting too old, that's the toughest.
Me (Stacee):Getting old isn't for sissies, is it?
Jan:No, it isn't. That's what I tell you. You've got to be tough to get old.
Me (Stacee):Yeah, my grandma. What did she say? She'd say time marches on right across your face. That's what she used to tell me.
Jan:Yeah, you know, and you know I got on my last bronc. I've been on it 71. I said I've got one more in me,
Me (Stacee):you
Jan:Yeah, I think so, but I was going to do it on my 80th birthday and I had a huge 80th birthday. There was 300-some people at my 80th birthday party, all my family, which I have a huge one and they were putting their whole family was there. And then friends and acquaintances. I had a friend fly from Australia I had. They flew from Texas, they flew from this was in Idaho and they flew from Washington. You know it was I said maybe I didn't live 80 years in vain. It sounds like you got a lot of people that like you. It is. You know I am blessed. Yeah, I go south every winter and a half for the last two winters and you know I was gone four and a half months last year. I never had to rent a motel room anywhere and I try not to stay too long and wear out my welcome so I can go back again.
Me (Stacee):That's a smart, that's good advice. What's been a tough time you've had to face personally.
Jan:Probably the loss of my husband. I have been married four times, jim my last husband. He was my uncle for 30 years. He was married to my mother's sister.
Me (Stacee):He was married to your mother's sister.
Jan:Yeah, all of my stepkids are my first cousins.
Me (Stacee):Oh my gosh, that's a mind twister. How long were you married?
Jan:30 years 2 months and 6 days.
Me (Stacee):And
Jan:Together we've got 15 so I have 64 grandkids Right now. I have 126 great-grandkids and I have three great greats. And I tell everybody I'm the most blessed woman in the whole world because they're all healthy, they've all got good brains, they're great athletes and they're good people to boot. And I did something I thoroughly enjoyed my whole life and had a small measure of success at it, and I still get around about as good as most women my age, and they didn't have near the fun I did.
Me (Stacee):You get around good. What advice would you give a young girl, say a girl that's like 20 years old, and they're coming up and they're nervous about if they can do something. They're not sure if they've got the chops for it. What do you say? What's your advice?
Jan:The advice thing I tell everybody if you want to do something, reach out and grab it. It's not going to come to you. You're going to have to grab it, you're going to have to work for it and if it's, if it's something you want bad enough to work for, you can do it.
Jan:That's, that's exactly what it is. You can do it.
Me (Stacee):But, you
Jan:You really gotta want it.
Me (Stacee):You
Jan:Nobody's going to hand it to you.
Me (Stacee):Well, thank you for talking to me.
Jan:Well, I've had a great story, you know.
Me (Stacee):You know, sometimes you meet people in your life at just the right time, and I think this was the perfect time for me to meet Jan, and maybe you're like me but I noticed that I've been carrying a little more fear with me these days. You know, it's not the obvious kind of scream at a horror movie kind, but more like the quiet kind that creeps into your everyday life and it's fear that things won't go well. Like, like you know, recently I was playing golf and I had a shot on the golf course and there were all these geese just chilling in the fairway and all I can think about is little Petey and Dumb and Dumber and how I could, with the luck of a draw, knock one of them in the head. Or it's fear that something will suddenly go bad. Like when I'm riding the horse and Mr. Walrus and he's just standing there quietly I have this fear that he's just gonna bolt and take off and run down the arena for no apparent reason. Or I have the fear of looking dumb. And I definitely noticed this when I'm trying to practice my Spanish at the local Mexican restaurant. I suddenly have this fear that they won't know what an enchilada is.
Me (Stacee):So what I'm realizing is that fear is what holds most people back. It's not talent, it's not timing, it's not a lack of opportunity, it's just fear. And it's fear that keeps people maybe you from doing amazing things, from becoming a better version of yourself or, at the very least, having some awesome experiences and amazing stories to remember. And fear is sneaky. It doesn't always show up as panic or anxiety. Sometimes it shows up as procrastination or perfectionism or overthinking, or when you tell yourself I'm just being realistic, that's actually just fear again, just dressed up a little bit better. And fear loves to pretend it's protecting you from embarrassment, from disappointment or from failure, but really it's just protecting your comfort zone. And while that zone might feel safe, it's also where dreams go to die a slow, very boring death.
Me (Stacee):And I decided I don't want to live a boring life. This is why I've recently started to learn how to freestyle swim. It's taken me years to even learn how to tread water. I never learned to tread water as a kid because I had ear problems until I was 10 years old. And then my mom, who doesn't swim herself, told me that women in our family have a particular kind of fat that just doesn't flow, and I believed that for a long time. But recently I got in the water and I tried to freestyle swim and okay, if I'm being honest, I did sink a little bit but I popped right back up. I mean, it's only five feet deep. I did sink a little bit but I popped right back up. I mean it's only five feet deep. And it turns out, after lots of practice, I can swim. My fat does float. So here's what I'm trying now and what I would challenge you to try as well Instead of asking what if something bad happens, instead of asking what if something bad happens, flip it to what if something amazing happens?
Me (Stacee):What if it works out? What if it's better than you imagined? What if you end up holding a Guinness World Record for the longest career in bareback bronc riding? I think all of us can take a little bit more Jan in our life. I mean, I don't know that I can embrace all of Jan's way of doing life, but I can definitely add a dash or two to spice things up for myself. And after meeting her, this is exactly what I intend to do. If you want to see some pictures of Jan riding these broncs these are pictures she showed me during the interview. Go over to Instagram or Facebook and look at our page. It's called Everyday Wonder Women Podcast and you will see some of her pictures there. I'll post them for you guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did and I look forward to seeing you next week, where I am going to introduce you to another amazing Wonder Woman.