San Francisco treat: Grand National plays host to next stop on Wrangler ProRodeo Tour

By Courtesy PRCA
Posted Monday, March 31, 2008

The 2008 Wrangler ProRodeo Tour returns to the Bay Area when the Grand National Rodeo Horse and Stock Show in San Francisco plays host to the eighth stop of the 26-venue Tour. The seven-performance rodeo starts April 4-5 at the Cow Palace in nearby Daly City, then resumes April 9 and finishes with the final two shows from April 11-12.

For the next two weekends in San Francisco, cowboys and cowgirls will not only compete for part of a purse that neared $225,000 in 2007, but points that apply toward the Wrangler ProRodeo Tour and entry into the Ariat Playoff series later this summer.

At the conclusion of the 26th rodeo, the top 35 contestants in total Tour points and the “wild card,” event champions from the Dodge National Circuit Finals Rodeo, will move on to the first Tour Championship event, Aug. 12-16 in Caldwell, Idaho. From there, the field will be trimmed to a single champion after the three subsequent playoff events in Puyallup, Wash.; Omaha, Neb.; and Dallas.

In 2006, the Grand National changed six decades of tradition by moving its rodeo from November to the spring season. The event had been one of the final PRCA rodeos of the season, often the last chance for cowboys and cowgirls to earn money for qualification to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. After years of trying to compete with the Oakland A’s, San Francisco 49ers, Halloween and other assorted oddities in the late fall, officials with the Grand National Rodeo in 2005 decided to stop battling the calendar.

The rodeo took a year off in 2005 to accommodate the date change. After holding its last November rodeo in 2004, the new era of spring rodeo in the Bay Area started on April 7, 2006.

Day-to-day attendance for the rodeo was up from the 2004 event, and contestant entries increased by nearly 250 compared to the late-fall rodeo of 2004. The proximity of other lucrative rodeos in California, such as Red Bluff, Oakdale and Clovis, just to name a few, doesn’t hurt, either.

Last year, bull rider Dave Samsel, of Haslet, Texas, defended his Grand National title by riding two bulls for 171 points. Trevor Brazile, the reigning and five-time World Champion All-Around Cowboy, also fared well in San Francisco, earning more than $9,000 in corralling both the rodeo’s all-around and tie-down roping titles.

Other Grand National Rodeo champions from 2007 were bareback rider Jason Havens of Prineville, Ore.; steer wrestler Clayton Hass of Terrell, Texas; team ropers David Key of Caldwell, Texas/Kory Koontz of Sudan, Texas; saddle bronc rider Dusty Hausauer of Dickinson, N.D.; and barrel racer Sabra O’Quinn of Ocala, Fla.