Melody Hale has been coming to the St. Paul Rodeo for decades.
Despite being a competitive roper with 30 years of experience, her trips from her home in Tenino, Washington, to the big rodeo in the tiny Oregon town were to watch her husband, Brett, compete in events like team roping.
On Tuesday night, she competed in the rodeo for the first time while he was the spectator.
Like a handful of bigger rodeos around the nation, St. Paul added breakaway roping this year. It was the first time in about 50 years the rodeo has added a new competition. And it is only the second competitive event for women.
In Tuesday’s first performance, Hale roped her calf in 3.3 seconds, good for second place. And the smile on her face showed how much competing at St. Paul meant to her.
“It’s kind of like a dream come true,” she said. “It’s kind of like a bucket list rodeo to get to come to.”
The St. Paul Rodeo continues through Saturday night with performances starting at 7:30 p.m., and there is a matinee performance at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The breakaway roping is the eighth event in each performance.
For breakaway ropers like Hale, the chance to compete in front of 10,000 people for the first time was something that seemed only possible in a dream a few years ago.
What is breakaway roping?
In breakaway roping, a calf is placed in a chute with the cowgirl on her horse to the right. The cowgirl nods her head and the calf is released into the arena.
The calf is given a head start of a few feet. The rope in front of the competitor releases to start the clock. If they go too soon, they are given a false start penalty of 10 seconds, which eliminates any chance they have of winning money.
“You’re out, especially … with the world class cowgirls we have here,” said Todd Koch, the St. Paul Rodeo arena director.
The riders swing their rope two or three times, then launch it at the calves. They have to get it around the calves' head. If they do, the riders bring their horse to a stop.
When that happens, it breaks a thin piece of rope tied between their lasso and the saddle of the horse. The riders’ rope has a bright flag on it, and when the judge sees that fly, the clock is stopped.
“Time is money,” Hale said.
Different competitions give the calves more or less head starts. Even with a longer head start, such as in the big arena at St. Paul, the event takes seconds to complete.
It takes longer to stage the horses than to rope the calves.
Where men’s roping events sometimes require them to jump off their horse at speed or wrestle the calf to the ground, breakaway roping is less physical by comparison.
A Wilsonville cowgirl finds breakaway roping
Mattie Turner grew up around horses, but her first exposure to rodeos came when her mother would ride at them with a National Guard flag. She carried a flag in a few rodeo entrances, and that helped spark her interest.
As a sophomore in high school at Wilsonville, she started competing in events like barrel racing, goat tying and pole bending in high school rodeos.
But when she went to West Texas College in Snyder, Texas, to compete in barrel racing, she didn’t find as much success as she would have liked.
She decided to find another event and breakaway roping fit the bill.
“There are some girls that are real handy with a rope, but maybe they can’t afford the $200,000 barrel horse,” Turner said.
Breakaway roping was just starting to emerge in the rodeo world, but she realized she had the skills to find success in it.
Over the past few years, she’s competed more, both in Oregon and in Texas, where she spends half of the year.
“I didn’t feel like I was competitive enough when it first started to blow up onto the scene,” she said. “I wanted to make sure when I was ready.”
As more rodeos have added the event, Turner has capitalized on her opportunities.
Heading into the busy Fourth of July rodeo season, Turner leads the Columbia River circuit standings in breakaway roping with $8,174.79 earned this year.
She says her goal is to win circuit and world championships.
“I also want to be like a good example for other little girls that didn’t grow up roping,” Turner said.
Women’s participation in rodeo has been limited
Participation by women in rodeo has been limited, partly by tradition.
Barrel racing, a staple of rodeos since the 1970s, has been the only rodeo competition for women. At St. Paul, it has been offered since 1974.
It is sanctioned by the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association. The organization now also sanctions breakaway roping.
There are a few women who compete in events like saddle bronc riding and bull riding, notably teenager Najiah Knight of Arlington.
Women also participate in the rodeo court.
By breakaway roping gaining acceptance, it is giving women an opportunity to compete in rodeo.
“It’s been there, it’s just been quietly there,” Hale said. “There’s more girls doing it. There’s some girls coming out of retirement. It’s fun. It’s new. It’s exciting.”
Breakaway roping gaining acceptance at bigger rodeos
Breakaway roping has existed for decades, but until the late 2010s, it was only offered at the youth, high school, college and amateur levels.
Some smaller rodeos started adding breakaway roping in 2017.
“There was just a few the first year,” Hale said.
The first world finals for the event was in 2020.
As more fans have seen breakaway roping on television, demand for the event has risen, giving rodeos like St. Paul a reason to add it.
“I would say it’s gotten so popular at other rodeos that it’s not necessarily a rookie league anymore, but it’s coming up the ranks and our fans asked for it, and we made it happen,” Koch said.
Most rodeos have packed schedules. Adding a new event requires eliminating another. In a sport that relies heavily on tradition, that’s not easy to do.
“We actually dropped an event, the wild cow milking,” said Mike Dolan, a longtime St. Paul Rodeo member.
In St. Paul, the rodeo has added over $18,000 to the purse along with the entry fees for the purse for competitors. It’s lower than all the other nine events at the rodeo. But St. Paul will pay out over $32,000 to the competitors, which is a lot compared with the smaller rodeos most are used to competing in.
That means that the top riders from around the nation need to compete at St. Paul.
But Fourth of July rodeos in Molalla and Eugene still don’t offer the event.
“It is getting better,” Turner said. “I think I’ve seen there’s 39 pro rodeos to go to over the July Fourth week. A lot of those rodeos do have breakaway now. It is still the emerging thing.”
Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com
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