The Stockyard’s Championship Rodeo has been performing for 100 years, and they are celebrating!
The Stockyards Rodeo is open EVERY Friday and Saturday night of the year, and is the ONLY rodeo in the world open all year long!
We parked across the street from the Stockyards Rodeo in the public parking. In previous visits, I’ve been able to use my credit card for parking, but there were attendants there, who only accepted CASH (which I NEVER have)! Luckily, my husband had cash, because the closest parking lot that accepted credit cards was quite a ways down!
This was my children’s FIRST rodeo, and as excited as they were, they really weren’t sure what to expect! The biggest obstacle was WHAT to wear! My oldest both had cowboy hats, but my youngest insisted that cowboys wore fedoras…
We purchased our tickets at the gate, the press pass getting us 2 tickets for FREE. Once inside, we could sit anywhere except in the more expensive BOX seats on the first couple of rows. The early bird gets the better seats, although they were all good! Events take place at both ends of the arena, making the BEST seats as close to the middle as possible!
The first event was the bull riding! My little five year old couldn’t believe people were riding the bulls! It was very exciting!
The rodeo clowns were hilarious, and they even used a giant slingshot to throw a few t-shirts to the audience!
The next event was calf roping! My husband made a food run, and came back with yummy brisket sandwiches from Riscky’s Bar-B-Q, and a brisket frito pie!
ALL the children, age 8 -12, were invited to come down for the calf scramble! They let loose a calf with some duct tape on it’s back, and the object was to be the first to grab the tape off the calf!
We then cheered during the team roping events, and talked about all the pretty horses.
Then all children, 7 and under, were invited to come down for the Mutton Scramble! Similar to the Calf Scramble, the children were to chase a grown sheep in the arena and be the first to grab a ribbon. My little five year old grabbed the sheep, and hung on as it pulled her around in the dirt! But someone else grabbed the ribbon before him! Of course, he thought he was going to get to keep the sheep!
During an intermission, several women from the audience were invited to come down for a contest, although they didn’t know what kind of contest. The women invited down were all visiting from Australia, and a little shocked to find out once they were in the arena that it was a dance contest! I won’t give it away, but it was a bit of a gag, and I laughed so hard! It was hilarious!
The event I was excited to see was the barrel racing! We cheered so loudly that my throat hurt!
The racing was followed by MORE bull riding! We LOVED every minute of it!! It was so exciting when a riding actually went 8 minutes!
We visited the Rodeo Store afterwards, where they sold toys, cowboy hats and other souvenirs. Then we walked down Exchange, looking in the windows of closed shops and listening to some of the live music being played on the street. It was such a pleasant end to a GREAT evening!
My Mommy Tips:
- If they want to do either of the scrambles, dress them in clothes they can RUN in!
- Bring antibacterial wipes to clean their hands after the scramble.
- Outside food and drinks are not allowed.
- I took a sweater but the temperature was very comfortable during the show.
Click HERE for more to do in the Fort Worth Stockyards!
Stockyards Championship Rodeo
121 E Exchange Ave, Fort Worth
Click HERE to visit their website.
Keep Having Fun in the Texas Sun!
Michelle
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