Ep. 41 - March 2020 Rodeo Updates Part I
Join Katie Schrock, Katy Lucas and Rachel Owens-Sarno as they give you the first roundup for March 2020! There are a lot of big rodeos happening, a new partnership created for the PRCA, and a new opportunity for women in rodeo. Join us as we chat about all of this and, of course, the coronavirus.
Rodeo
The American
We watched the semi-finals of the American wrap up last weekend and are (not so patiently) waiting to watch it March 7-8 weekend. It’s been fun to watch some great up and comers, such as the High School breakaway roper Madison Outhier who won the event in 2019 is moving on with a 1.8 second run.
In only it’s a second year, breakaway is different than the other events where the Top 10 after the NFR get invited back. But, of course, there is no breakaway at the NFR so all of them are qualifiers so the Top 15 qualifiers move on TYPICALLY but there was a tie for 15th meaning 16 will go.
There are six contestants that battle through the qualifiers and the semi-finals and will go against the top 10 invited. In the barrel racing, they take 10 qualifiers in and has to do with the amount of competitors that are entering those qualifiers throughout the year. That’s their reward for everyone turning out and entering. This is also why the breakaway roper doesn’t qualify for the million dollar bonus because there are no invites that they are beating.
When looking through the results, you will see some interesting numbers of some large time discrepancies in the qualifiers. That has to do with the way the playoff system works out as you only have 10 guys in the next round means that they have more of a chance to get through it.
Rachel is pretty excited about Kassie Mowry and her colt, Epic Guy, that we talked about earlier in the season during the futurity episode. She has placed first or second, every step of the way. We are excited to see how he handles a big rodeo environment at the American where it will be less controlled.
Rodeo Houston
Kicked off on Tuesday this week, it’ll pay out $50,000 to the PRCA. Can you imagine having so much extra money that the parent-association literally puts a cap on the amount you can pay out so that someone doesn’t just run away with the entire season?
Calgary Stampede Partners with PRCA
And speaking about big, $50,000 purse capped rodeos, the PRCA announced on Tuesday this week that they are partnering with the Calgary Stampede for the first time in history. The Team Roping Journal posted an article with Matt Sherwood, Levi Simpson and Kolton Schmidt all chimed in on the article as both Canadian and PRCA world champions. Team roping will not be a part of their regular rodeo but is on the same grounds as Calgary but not in the big arena. They will have $35,000 added to both sides with a $500 entry fee to make a total payout of $50,000 per side and it is counting as a PRCA rodeo but not, at this time, as a Canadian professional rodeo.
Some of the comments in that article said they wish that it was a $100,000 rodeo for the team ropers but they haven’t had team roping ever since its inception in 1912.
“I think it’s awesome that the PRCA is reaching out to add these rodeos, some of them back in to the fold. I think it’s going to raise the bottom line of rodeo,” says Katy Lucas.
“We’ve talked about it in the episodes with JJ… and Garrett Smith… I firmly believe that rodeos are built on rural communities and the backs of small rodeos,” says Katie Schrock. “The All American ProRodeo Series was cancelled… and I am afraid that we are moving away from the world of small rodeos and just be focused on the big money rodeos.”
The That Western Life hosts discuss the options of how they can keep those small rodeos a part of it, what the addition of these big rodeos means in the long term, and the economic value of these rodeos. What does making tiers in rodeo look like?
WCRA
An annual bonus of $1,000,000 to any one athlete or collection of athletes that win three consecutive million dollar events in a row. The reality is probably very slim with the level of competition but it’s cool that they have made it possible. Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi and Shad Mayfield are both having really impressive starts to their year as well as leading their respective events in the PRCA as well as the WCRA.
World Championship of Women’s Rodeo
The WCRA and the PBR announced a joint partnership for the addition of the World Champion of Women’s Rodeo which will pay out $750,000. Rachel points out the difference in how they specifically pointed out why they are paying out less.
“I personally,” starts Rachel, “... have a question on the new World Championship of Women’s Rodeo and how does this play out with the WPRA and their world finals, what kind of talks there were, and … what kind of information we are going to learn about this and the WPRA finals.”
Katie Schrock speaks off the cuff with her classic conspiracy theory speculation about the animosity at the WPRA has been and how the public seems angry at them. Is this an answer to the angry mob? Is this reminiscent of the ERA and PRCA situation from 2016? Katie’s hometown rodeo committee is doing their third annual All Girls Rodeo and one in the spring that is indoors. These are conversations that we have had a lot of on our end for our region who has a lot of stand alone WPRA events in barrel racing and breakaway roping, and our new Pacific Coast All Girls Rodeo Association that will be coming out within the year is an important part of trying to answer that question as well in this region.
Wrangler NFR is Seeking a General Manager
Maybe it’s just Katie, but it’s really strange to see the NFR job posting for a general manager as we chatted about in the Jeff Medders podcast episode. Going through line by line, the team picks apart the job description and some peculiar points to it. The team discusses if it has a full disclosure of all information, if the reason for the past lack of success in keeping a general manager has to do with the outline for the job description, and more.
Advocacy
Madison Baumgartner; From MLB to Team Roping
Despite not being much of a sports fan outside of the sport of rodeo, Katy shares how baseball’s Madison Baumgartner was outed for competing under the alias Mason Saunders. A long time horseback rider and roper, he’s been competing in team roping jackpots throughout the years.
A lot of people were angered because of the “out” because it ruins his ability to back into the box without having cameras glued on to him. More people were angry about the lack of care and research done by the mainstream sports reporters who released the stories. Googled terms were just sprinkled in there without actually saying anything that they had actually researched.
One of those claims was the dangers and risk of injury for Madison to compete which gives rodeo an unintentional bad image. On the flip side, it gave great exposure for the world of rodeo and team roping specifically to have a big name like that competing in the sport.
First Woman Rides a Horse on a Race Track in Saudia Arabia
It’s 2020 and The Jetson’s predicted that we’d have flying cars and while we aren’t quite there, we did have a big step when the first woman ever rode a horse on a race track in Saudia Arabia.