Darbi Brooks is like most high school senior girls — polite, considerate and unassuming. However, when she gets atop her 1,100-pound horse named Copper to compete like she did Saturday at the state O-Mok-See event, Darbi is all business.

“I’ve been riding (almost) all my life,” she said. “For about 16 years, I guess,” she said.

While Brooks has been atop horses for all but a fractional amount of her life, she now admits she’s having more fun than ever.

“I live for this,” she said. “I now feel like I have the right horse for me. There’s a chemistry that’s involved. A great horse might not be a great horse for me,” she said. “I think Copper and I have the right chemistry.”

   That chemistry mixed well Saturday with Brooks’ businesslike demeanor as she and Copper dashed around the barrel as she grabbed the flag and the two sped back to the finish line in 10.5  seconds for a personal best during the state O-Mok-See competition held at J. Neils Park.

“It was a good ride,” Brooks said moments after the race as she steadied Copper. “Ten-point-five is a personal best for me. We’re getting there.”

  It wasn’t always that way for Brooks, however. 

Copper is not the first horse with which she has competed. The others, she said, just didn’t click.

   Copper belonged to a friend, and when she was looking for another horse, she went to that friend.

  “When I saw him, he was up against a fence, pushing on it with his hoof, trying to move it to get more grass. To me, that showed intelligence. He’s nine, and now, I’ve had him five years,” said Brooks, the daughter of Tricia and Joe Brooks of Libby.

While Brooks and Cooper are still getting to know each other, she enjoys “six to eight” O-Mok-See events.

 “I think pole-bending is my favorite,” Brooks admits, but she also enjoys the barrels.

Brooks has committed horseman like Gene Rogers, president of the Troy Saddle Tramps, to thank for bringing the state O-Mok-See tournament to Libby.

“This is a great arena,” Roger said Saturday. “Probably, the best in the state. There are so many people to thank for helping us bring this to Libby.”

O-Mok-See pattern-racing competition has it origins in the old west. According to an O-Mok-See Web page, it found its way into western riding vocabulary in the same manner as the Spanish-American word rodeo. 

O-Mok-See was coined by people who were living here long before the Spaniards, some say the Blackfeet Indians.