Women of Rodeo: The Road to Fort Worth Runs Through Daly City
Press Release
The Cow Palace and Premier Women’s Rodeo have turned Women of Rodeo into a direct qualifier for the richest women’s rodeo in the world. October 3, three thousand dollars an event, and a ticket to Cowtown Coliseum on the line.
A California cowgirl can now rope her way from Daly City to Fort Worth in one night.
The Cow Palace and Premier Women’s Rodeo announced on August 19 that the Women of Rodeo competition at the Grand National Rodeo will become a PWR partnership exemption event. What that means in plain terms is this. Win your discipline at the Cow Palace on October 3 and you earn the chance to qualify directly for the Premier Women’s Rodeo World Championship next May at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, the richest women’s rodeo on earth.
There is no season of points to grind out for it. No airport. One night in a building on the edge of San Francisco, and the door is open.
PWR Commissioner Linsay Rosser-Sumpter framed the partnership as bigger than a single rodeo, calling it a matter of building opportunity and a bigger platform for women in the sport. The Cow Palace, she noted, has a long history of celebrating the cowgirl, and this exemption gives PWR athletes one more meaningful way to reach the championship.
Cow Palace chief executive Allison Keaney made a point worth repeating in a year when everyone is discovering women’s sport. Women’s rodeo events have been part of women’s sport since the late 1800s, she said, and they are burning hotter now than ever. Women of Rodeo exists to put a light on those athletes.
Three Disciplines, One Night
The competition runs Saturday, October 3, at 6 p.m., with doors at 5, as part of the Grand National Rodeo at the Cow Palace in Daly City. Three disciplines will run: bronc riding, barrel racing and breakaway roping. Each one carries a $3,000 purse, and each one carries the qualification.
Flying U Rodeo will produce the night. Flying U hauls stock all season and all over, and California readers have seen plenty of the outfit lately. They put the stock in the Earl Warren Showgrounds pens for the Santa Barbara Rodeo in August and they produce the Marysville Stampede in September. The Rossers are having a year.
The entertainment lineup is not an afterthought. Anthony Lucia, a three-time PRCA Announcer of the Year, will call the action. Justin Rumford, who has taken PRCA Clown of the Year ten consecutive times, will work the crowd. And the night closes with Manu Lataste, the bull jumper, who California rodeo fans just watched work the Santa Barbara Rodeo over Fiesta weekend.
Contestant registration opens September 16 through RodeoTicket.com. Tickets are available through the Cow Palace.
For the cowgirls in our circulation area, the math on this is simple and it is good. Getting to a world championship has always meant money and miles, and the women who can afford both have always had an advantage over the women who can only afford one. An exemption event on California soil takes some of that away. A breakaway roper out of Merced or Paso Robles or Red Bluff can enter one rodeo she can drive to, and if she wins it, she is going to Texas.
That is the whole idea, and it is worth showing up for.
Women of Rodeo, Grand National Rodeo. Saturday, October 3, 2026, 6 p.m. Cow Palace, Daly City, California. Contestant registration opens September 16 at RodeoTicket.com.
Photos by Ryan Jae and Rich Yee
