Adorable Mutton-Busting Texan Stars In Award Winning Documentary Short ‘Just Hold On’

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Ten-year-old Texan Marlie McDonald has retired from mutton busting, having outgrown the sport. But in her time she could outride the best of them.Marlie’s exploits in the arena are documented in the short film Just Hold On, especially her gold buckle-winning effort at RodeoHouston in 2018.

Just six years old then, McDonald climbed aboard a sheep, grabbed a couple fistfuls of wool and when the gate opened and the critter bolted, she kept her grip for 90 feet, earning a perfect score.“All the way to the wall!” hollered an excited announcer. “She’s done it!”“My heart was racing,” she recounts in the film directed by Oscar winner Rayka Zehtabchi and Sam A.

Davis, “like I was having a panic attack.”“I think she likes challenges,” observes her cowboy-hatted grandpa, leaning on a gnarled wooden cane. “And she has a temperament that makes her want to do what she wants to do and when she wants to do it, and that’s okay.

We’re proud of her.”With her curly hair, Marlie could be a red-haired ringer for Shirley Temple. She charmed the rodeo crowd with her victory and post-race interview where she declared, “I’ve been practicing on my dad.” By that, she meant she prepared for races by jumping on her father’s back as he obligingly got on all fours in the yard.As the rodeo audience listened, the interviewer asked Marlie what she wanted to be when she grew up.“A spy,” she replied without hesitation, explaining the profession appealed to her because it’s “where you get to fight for the world [against] the bad guys, where you get to fight them.”The film, clocking in at just 7 minutes, has been on a festival run since premiering at SXSW in 2020, where it won the Texas Shorts category.