Kelsey Shoemaker
Linsay Sumpter
Fort Worth’s big rodeo month continued this week with a hearty howdy that welcomed the Women’s Rodeo World Championship in the Stockyards.
The occasion marks the first time the event has ever been conducted in Fort Worth. It’s also the richest women’s rodeo in history, according to event officials. Competitors are vying for a piece of the record $750,000 purse.
Qualifying began Monday in each discipline featured — barrel racing, breakaway roping, and team roping. The finals — the “Showdown Rounds” — are set for Wednesday.
It’s free to attend.
The landmark moment comes with the PBR already in town. For the last three years, PBR has included the all-women rodeo in its finals lineup but will have its first round in Fort Worth. There are 150 women from across the country, competing in the three disciplines, and on Wednesday night, the top 40 will compete.
“When we landed here last week to get started on the event, I felt like we had come home to where we’ve belonged the entire time,” says Sean Gleason, CEO, and commissioner of the PBR. “We are right here in Cowtown Coliseum celebrating the PBR World finals and women’s rodeo. This is where it belongs.”
A total of $182,500 will be paid out in each discipline and each event champion will leave with a minimum of $60,000. The All-Around World Champion will also earn a $20,000 cash bonus. The Women’s Rodeo World Championship will also award each World Champion a $5,000 bonus.
The event is the second of four major rodeos of the 2022 WCRA Triple Crown of Rodeo.
“Our goal and our mission with this at the ground floor is to grow rodeo and raise the awareness and visibility of women athletes in rodeo,” says Bobby Mote, president of the PBR. “Women in rodeo have been underserved in rodeo in our opinion. With seven disciplines in the standard rodeo, only barrel racing was for women. Half the rodeo demographic is made up of women so it only made sense to us to help create more opportunities for them.”
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Diversity has been at the center of the PBR World Finals. Pairing with the PBR and the women’s rodeo was the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo last weekend. The Bill Pickett rodeo honors the contributions of Black cowboys and cowgirls to the western culture. On Sunday, alongside the final day of the PBR, a showcase of Mexican heritage is scheduled for the Stockyards, Mexico in Our Bloods, a two-hour equestrian showcase.
“We are moving in a direction of such amazing innovation with inclusion, and the opportunity is appreciated, but we’ve been here,” says Linsay Sumpter, commissioner of the Women’s Rodeo World Championship. “We’ve been in this sport. This is a new chapter for women in rodeo. There are mothers, there are businesswomen, there are athletes, there are students, there’s just an array of women competing here for everyone.”
