Rodeo groups tangle over barrel racing

Revenue, gender relations at issue in federal lawsuit

Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 20, 2006 at midnight

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The country's two foremost rodeo groups, both based in Colorado Springs, have locked horns over the growing riches of women's barrel racing.

While revenue from this increasingly popular, multimillion-dollar sport is at the center of the dispute, gender relations also are at issue.

The squabble, once confined to private negotiations, now is in the public arena, with a federal lawsuit filed this week over the matter.

The dispute pits the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the oldest and largest rodeo-sanctioning body, against the Women's Professional Rodeo Association, a 58-year-old group that has been holding women's barrel racing at PRCA-sanctioned events.

The WPRA has more than 2,000 members and sanctions more than 600 barrel races a year, representing total payouts of more than $5 million. Barrel racing is its primary event.

The PRCA says the women's group has had it too good financially - reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra benefits - and has tried to impose additional fees on the female barrel racers.

When the WPRA balked this year, the PRCA decided to end the partnership and create a competing women's barrel racing subsidiary, to begin racing Nov. 13.

The WPRA has filed for a preliminary injunction to block that effort in U.S. District Court in Denver, alleging that such a barrel racing subsidiary is an effort to drive it out of business.

"They represent some of the chauvinism that we've actually had to fight for nearly 60 years, and now that we've become a viable asset in the sport of rodeo, they want to take that over," Jymmy Kay Davis, president of the WPRA, said in a telephone interview from Texas. "I find it almost laughable that a cowboy association run by men thinks they can do a better job of promoting and protecting our athletes."

She said her organization would have liked to remain business partners but "was being held captive under a male organization that made monetary demands at a whim" without proof.

PRCA Commissioner Troy Ellerman countered that the lawsuit is without merit. He said his organization's goal isn't to put the women's rodeo group out of business, but to address issues female barrel racers have, including safety and judging.

"In today's day and age when all-male clubs are being decried for excluding women and we're trying to include them, we should be applauded," Ellerman said.

He noted that Davis' three predecessors have endorsed the plan, "and I think that speaks volumes about our efforts to make it right."

Davis said her predecessors are misinformed.

In barrel racing, described as a Western horse race, a rider and its horse circle three barrels arranged in a clover-leaf pattern. To ensure a high-quality product, committees sponsoring rodeos often seek the sanction of professional organizations such as the PRCA and WPRA.

Ellerman said his group isn't preventing the women's group from co-existing, noting they have a number of barrel racing events scheduled separately from -PRCA-sanctioned events, and that rodeo committees can choose.

He said that while the PRCA has sent letters to a number of female barrel racers, it hasn't tried to coerce them into joining.

"I think our goal is to show them this isn't a threat, but an opportunity and to show them the benefits," Ellerman said.

But Davis says the PRCA is threatening the rodeo committees and trying to exclude competition after the women's organization worked for years to help the PRCA market women's rodeo to sponsors. The WPRA said it even moved its national office from Oklahoma City in 1995 to forge a better relationship with the PRCA.

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