In the span of 2.8 seconds, Josie Goodrich exploded into the arena on her horse and wrapped her lasso around a fleeing calf. The maneuver landed the 24-year-old from Oregon first place in a preliminary round of breakaway roping at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Goodrich’s roping has won her $5,000 thus far, and if she advances past the semifinals into the championship, she could also take home the top prize of $65,000.
“That is life-changing money,” Goodrich said.
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is wrapping up its final days of competitions, carnival, and musical performances this week after opening on March 2. Rodeo season is just kicking off, though, with other competitions across the country slated from March to September. Houston’s rodeo has been around since 1932, but breakaway roping wasn’t added as an event until 2022, giving women competitors another option to win thousands in prize money.
However, not all rodeos offer ropers like Goodrich the same financial opportunity.
Women have been roping livestock for centuries, and competing in breakaway roping for decades, according to the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association. The WPRA was founded in 1948 by 38 women in San Angelo, Texas, who decided to create their own competitions in a male-dominated rodeo landscape. The WPRA created formalized rules for women’s events and worked to add a barrel racing event (in which a cowgirl races her horse through a formation of barrels) to many professional rodeos sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the largest rodeo organization in the world, in the 1960s.
Although the WPRA has held its own breakaway roping competitions since the 1970s, barrel racing remained the only women’s event in most PRCA rodeos — which enjoy more funding and a national spotlight — for decades. It wasn’t until 2020 that the WPRA and the PRCA signed an agreement to allow all PRCA-sanctioned rodeos to include breakaway roping as a second option for women competitors, said Ann Bleiker, WPRA’s media director.
“The leadership of the PRCA and the WPRA, they worked on a partnership together to open it up to more professional rodeos, and that’s really when it caught fire,” Bleiker said.
Prior to the agreement, breakaway roping was only held at 35 PRCA rodeos, but by 2025 that number had skyrocketed to 560 rodeos.
“Back in the day, the collegiate level was as far as you could go with breakaway roping, and then you were done, and you just had to be a barrel racer,” Goodrich said. “There are women now coming out of retirement, getting back into the swing of roping.”
The professional inclusion of breakaway roping has driven an explosion of women’s participation and interest in rodeo. A 2021 survey of entries in professional rodeos found breakaway roping had more entries than any other event across the board except barrel racing. An online rodeo management tool reported in 2023 that nearly 70% of the 90,000 rodeo entries they handled were from female competitors, according to the Breakaway Roping Journal.
“It has changed the entire sport of rodeo. No question,” Goodrich said. “There are more entries in breakaway roping than in any other event.”
Bleiker said the WPRA has also felt the effects of the breakaway roping boom, including adding more personnel to their staff to oversee the breakaway events, and celebrating some of the biggest rodeo competitions adding the event, such as the Calgary Stampede in Canada and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
“When you get those big rodeos like Calgary and Houston featuring these women, I think that speaks volumes,” Bleiker said. “They’re seeing it, and their consumers are wanting it.”
Summer Williams, a 20-year-old from Mineral Wells, told The Barbed Wire she has been roping since she was in the third grade. Williams also competed in the semifinals of Houston’s breakaway roping event this year, and said she is excited to see how the inclusion of the sport will inspire more generations of women in rodeo.
“I think that the adding of breakaway into the pro rodeos has really encouraged more women and the younger generation to work harder,” Williams said. “Being there and showing these younger girls that we can accomplish the same thing as the guys or the women running barrels means a lot.”
Despite the increase in opportunities for women to compete in roping, financial barriers remain. Many rodeos that added the sport offered a much lower prize amount than what barrel racers or men’s events have been awarded.
The Breakaway Roping Journal reported that top ropers in the 2023 season on average still made approximately $5,500 less than a top barrel racer did in a season, and that ropers have 29 fewer rodeos to compete in than barrel racers – no small disparity when considering the travel expenses and entry fees required to compete.
Part of that financial disparity comes from equal added money rules, which require rodeos to add the same amount of money to different events’ prize pools regardless of the number of entries. The winners of events then take home the added money plus entry fees.
Barrel racing events achieved equal added money status in 1985, according to the WRPA. However, breakaway roping does not currently require rodeos to add the same amount of prize money as other events. Instead, the WRPA provided a gradual timeline to rodeos in 2023, allowing them to incrementally increase the prize money added for breakaway roping, with a goal of achieving equal added money by 2028.
“Breakaway roping has done so much for the sport of rodeo, and so I’m very thankful that it has been added, but we still do have a long way to go,” Goodrich said. “The breakaway ropers do not get equal added money at all of the rodeos. We’re still fighting to have the same opportunities as the barrel racers and all of the men’s events.”
However, some rodeos have opted to give breakaway ropers equal prize money before the WRPA’s 2027 deadline. In 2020, the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo became the first major rodeo to add a breakaway roping event with an equal prize money amount as the other events.
When the Houston Rodeo added its breakaway roping event in 2022, it offered up a $50,000 prize — also an equal prize amount as its other events.
“This is truly a monumental day for the women in breakaway roping,” said Jimmie Munroe, then-WPRA President, after Houston announced they would add the event. “Not only will they have the opportunity to compete and showcase their talent on one of rodeo’s largest stages, but they will do so with equal prize money.”
The spectators at these rodeos also reflect the role of women in supporting rodeo competitions. Over 60% of the Houston Rodeo’s attendees in 2023 were women, and over 70% of ticket purchases were made by women, according to the Team Roping Journal.
Bleiker said that the WRPA understands that different rodeos have varying financial capacities to handle the addition of a new event, and that when barrel racing was introduced decades ago, rodeos followed a similar incremental added money plan to what the WRPA now offers for breakaway roping.
“When you compare Houston to a smaller rodeo, their economics are way different as far as what it costs,” Bleiker said. “We’ve set out a plan for committees to slowly get to that point, a similar deal that they had to get equal money for barrel racing back in the 80s. It’s history repeating itself, a little bit.”
Despite the WRPA’s gradual added pay timeline, some rodeos have opted to exclude the event. Despite holding a breakaway roping event in its last four rodeos, the Clovis Rodeo in California announced March 10 that it would not host the event in this year’s rodeo, citing the prize money as a reason for its exclusion.
“After lengthy negotiations, the Clovis Rodeo Board of Directors has voted to not include breakaway roping at their 112th Annual Clovis Rodeo in 2026,” the Clovis Rodeo wrote in a statement. “The decision is based on a difference of opinion regarding prize money and the term of the agreement.”
The WRPA responded to the Clovis Rodeo’s exclusion of breakaway roping with a statement defending the equal added money policies.
“Equal added money in professional rodeo has always been an important topic,” the WRPA statement reads. “The purpose is to ensure that WPRA members (and their events) are being treated equally and fairly with all the other events at approved professional rodeos.”
Goodrich said that the Clovis Rodeo’s decision indicates that progress still needs to be made for breakaway ropers to achieve equal pay within the field of rodeo.
“That’s a really big rodeo, and that’s a really big deal that they’re not inviting us back,” Goodrich said. “It’s just kind of a reminder that we’re not there yet with the other events.”
Williams said that although she wishes all major rodeos offered equal money for breakaway roping, she’s grateful for the opportunity to compete in rodeos that do, like Houston’s.
“I think in just a few years, if we keep our head down and keep working hard that we will have the equal money that we’re wanting,” Williams said. “It’s such a great opportunity because just a few years ago, you wouldn’t know that breakaway was gonna be in the Houston rodeo.”