Where Cowgirls Come to Compete
California’s Riche$t All Girl Roping
Breakaway entries up nearly 40 percent. Team roping entries up 24.1 percent. A horse trailer to the high money winner. Eleven years in, Danielle Porteur’s roping is still outgrowing itself.
Written by Dee Yates | Photography by Hailey Combs
California’s Riche$t All Girl Roping is an annual all-women team roping and breakaway roping event produced by Danielle Porteur at Bolado Park Event Center in Tres Pinos, California, and 2026 was its eleventh year. The 2026 California’s Riche$t All Girl Roping was held August 2, 2026, and paid out $72,210 between its two events. The All Girl Open Breakaway carried $37,210 across 123 entries. The All Girl Open team roping paid $35,000. Both of those numbers came off a year of growth that would be remarkable at any event and is close to unheard of at year eleven. Team roping entries climbed 24.1 percent over 2025. Breakaway entries climbed nearly 40 percent.
A Trailer for High Money
The headline prize was something the roping had never offered before, a two-horse slant load trailer with a tack room going to the high money winner of the day. To be eligible, a cowgirl had to enter both the breakaway and the team roping, which is a real ask. It means a long day, two sets of nerves and two different ropes.
Gracie Beth Sutton of Cherry Valley, California, took the challenge and answered it. Sutton won the 2026 California’s Riche$t All Girl Open Breakaway average with a 15.36-second time on four head for $6,600, won the short go for another $350, then went back to the box in the team roping. Gracie Beth Sutton finished the day as the 2026 California’s Riche$t high money winner with $6,950 and drove home with the trailer. Dally Peterson was second in high money at $5,460, and Shaylee Baxley of Paso Robles was ten dollars behind that at $5,450. Watching that race come down to $1,490 between first and second told you exactly what the trailer did to the competition.
There is precedent for how close the high money race can get. Three years ago at California’s Riche$t, Beth Hitchcock entered both events, placed in the breakaway, roped well in the team roping and took high money by a hundred dollars.
The #3 BPI Incentive
The other thing new in 2026 was the #3 BPI incentive, a lower-rated side pot inside the California’s Riche$t All Girl Open Breakaway built for moms, for women who normally team rope, for youth, and for ropers who had not pulled a breakaway rope out of the trailer in years. Of the 123 breakaway entries, 75 entered it. That is not a side pot. That is two out of every three ropers in the event, and it says something about how many women are looking for a way back in.
None of this happens on its own. Danielle Porteur, who founded California’s Riche$t All Girl Roping and has produced it since 2015, has spent eleven years building it one year at a time, and the work behind it is the kind nobody sees. Chasing sponsors. Sorting cattle. Running numbers until the payout structure rewards the woman who drove eight hours as fairly as it rewards the one who lives down the road. Finding a way to put a trailer in the arena. She has never treated this as a novelty roping, and the field she draws now is proof that the cowgirls do not treat it that way either.
On the Road to Fort Worth
The timing is not an accident. Women’s sport is in the middle of the fastest expansion any of us have watched, and rodeo is squarely in it. Breakaway roping has gone from an event most fans had never seen televised to one carrying seven figures. The Kimes Ranch Million Dollar Breakaway puts a million dollars on the line. And PBR rebranded the Women’s Rodeo World Championship as the Premier Women’s Rodeo in November, then ran the first PWR Championship under the new banner May 12 through 15 at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth for a purse north of $803,000. PWR and its predecessor have paid more than $4.5 million to women athletes since 2020.
California’s Riche$t is on that road. It is a PWR Championship qualifier, which means the points a cowgirl earns at Bolado Park run through PWR’s Virtual Rodeo Qualifier toward Fort Worth. The VRQ is the piece that makes a one-day roping in San Benito County matter nationally, because it lets a woman nominate the events she can actually drive to and build a championship season out of where she lives instead of out of an airport. Two names off the Premier Women’s Rodeo 2026 leaderboards were in the arena at Tres Pinos. Erica Krantz, the 2026 PWR Professional Header leaderboard leader and a former Ropers Sports News contributor, placed second in the California’s Riche$t team roping incentive with Kelley Pile, 40.40 on three head for $1,000 apiece. Erica Krantz has written for these pages, and it is a particular pleasure to run her name in a results block. Kaitlyn Torres, the 2026 PWR All-Around and Professional Heeler leaderboard leader, entered both events at California’s Riche$t and placed sixth in the team roping average with Maisie Heffernan.
California’s Riche$t was doing this before the money showed up, and it fed the pipeline that made the money make sense.
Which brings up something the advertising side of this industry ought to sit with. Women drive somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of consumer purchasing decisions in this country, a figure Forbes and Nielsen have both put their names behind, and Nielsen projects women will control 75 percent of all discretionary spending by 2028. Every truck, every trailer, every saddle, every sack of feed, every entry fee and every hotel room on the road home runs through a decision a woman is making or heavily influencing. An arena with 123 breakaway ropers and a full team roping field is not a charity case for a sponsor. It is the customer. The companies figuring that out first are the ones whose banners are going to be hanging at Bolado Park for the next eleven years.
Danielle Porteur is already back at the drawing board for the 2027 California’s Riche$t All Girl Roping, and the entry growth has her looking hard at a two-day format. Her own way of putting it is that the goal is not simply to get bigger, it is to grow in a way that keeps California’s Riche$t a destination, an event cowgirls plan for and travel for and come back to.
The day ran on a crew. Photography by Hailey Combs. Video by Amy Witt of Cali Dreaming. Marguerite Mullins and Sadie Mullins in the secretary’s office. C.R. Wilkins on the microphone. Lee Legasey on the line. 7UP Productions handling production. Riley Bishop on the tractor. Billy Aviles and Todd Utterback flagging, with Aviles and David Portier spotting. The NextGen live stream crew, who drove out from Texas. Blaine Strohn on music. Ellie Porteur and Glenna Porteur at check-in. Rikki Perezchica and Clayton Johnson hanging banners. Kadin Korba, Fernando Angle Cornejo and Cesar Jimenez on the ground crew, pulling ropes all day.
California’s Riche$t All Girl Roping Results
Bolado Park Event Center, Tres Pinos, California. August 2, 2026. Total payout: $72,210.
All Girl Open Breakaway
Average, four head, $22,760. First, Gracie Beth Sutton, Cherry Valley, CA, 15.36, $6,600. Second, Shaylee Baxley, Paso Robles, CA, 16.03, $5,450. Third, Marinna Mori, Tuscarora, NV, 16.86, $4,300. Fourth, Haliegh Grant, Santa Maria, CA, 18.15, $3,200. Fifth, Braydee Bourdet, Hollister, CA, 18.35, $2,050. Sixth, Julie Harvey, Oakdale, CA, 18.48, $1,160.
Round 1, $5,000. First, Allie Hoskins, San Juan Bautista, CA, 2.89, $2,000. Second, Francie Heffernan, Fort Jones, CA, 3.07, $1,500. Third, Kylyn Watkins, Ukiah, CA, 3.08, $1,000. Fourth, Kaitlyn Andersen, San Luis Obispo, CA, 3.56, $500.
Round 2, $5,000. First, Lilly Matthews, Hollister, CA, 2.96, $2,000. Second, Lauren Segura, Hollister, CA, 3.11, $1,500. Third, Sutton Mang, Lompoc, CA, 3.15, $1,000. Fourth, Gracie Lopez, Solvang, CA, 3.31, $500.
Short go, $350. First, Gracie Beth Sutton, Cherry Valley, CA, 3.03, $350.
#3 BPI incentive, four head, $4,100, 75 entries. First, Julie Harvey, Oakdale, CA, 18.48, $1,640. Second, Chelsey Bushnell, Red Bluff, CA, 21.72, $1,240. Third, Blayce Campbell, Lompoc, CA, 29.13, $820. Fourth, Cheyenne Rey, Paicines, CA, 29.65, $400.
All Girl Open Team Roping
Average, four head. First, $2,750 each, Markie Battaglia and Mandy Niesen, 41.14. Second, $2,340 each, Sadie Grant and Dally Peterson, 44.16. Third, $2,000 each, Tammy White and Cheyenne Rey, 44.74. Fourth, $1,650 each, Dally Peterson and Alison Grantham, 44.88. Fifth, $1,300 each, Toni Miller and Tammy White, 47.29. Sixth, $940 each, Maisie Heffernan and Kaitlyn Torres, 49.11. Seventh, $580 each, Ella Selby and Lacy Taliaferro Bourdet, 49.60. Eighth, $240 each, Karen Dias and Megan Gunter, 54.45.
Round 1. First, $840 each, Dally Peterson and Alison Grantham, 7.56. Second, $630 each, Dally Peterson and Sadie Grant, 7.83. Third, $420 each, Megan Gunter and Mandy Niesen, 7.90. Fourth, $210 each, Brooke Jackson and Lacey Songer, 8.19.
Short go. First, $300 each, Tammy White and Cheyenne Rey, 7.67.
Incentive, three head. First, $1,320 each, Kashlyn Martinez and Becky Johnson, 37.75. Second, $1,000 each, Erica Krantz and Kelley Pile, 40.40. Third, $650 each, Karen Dias and Zoe Ekk, 42.35. Fourth, $330 each, Britt Jo Faborito and Leane Reed, 47.13.
High Money
First, Gracie Beth Sutton, $6,950, two-horse slant load trailer with tack room. Second, Dally Peterson, $5,460. Third, Shaylee Baxley, $5,450. Fourth, Marinna Mori, $4,300. Fifth, Tammy White, $3,600. Sixth, Haliegh Grant, $3,200. Seventh, Mandy Niesen, $3,170. Eighth, Sadie Grant, $2,970. Ninth, Julie Harvey, $2,800. Tenth, Markie Battaglia, $2,750.
California’s Riche$t All Girl Roping is an annual all-women team roping and breakaway roping event produced by Danielle Porteur at Bolado Park Event Center in Tres Pinos, California. It is a Premier Women’s Rodeo Championship qualifier.
Gracie Beth Sutton of Cherry Valley, California, won the 2026 breakaway average with 15.36 on four head and was high money winner with $6,950, earning a two-horse slant load trailer. Markie Battaglia and Mandy Niesen won the team roping average with 41.14 on four head.
The 2026 California’s Riche$t All Girl Roping paid $72,210 total: $37,210 in the All Girl Open Breakaway across 123 entries and $35,000 in the All Girl Open team roping.
Breakaway entries grew nearly 40 percent and team roping entries grew 24.1 percent over 2025.
Yes. California’s Riche$t is a PWR Championship qualifier, and points earned there count through PWR’s Virtual Rodeo Qualifier toward the championship in Fort Worth.
The #3 BPI incentive is a lower-rated side pot in the All Girl Open Breakaway for moms, team ropers, youth, and returning ropers. In 2026, 75 of the 123 breakaway entries entered it, and Julie Harvey of Oakdale won it.
