Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls Thrill Audiences All Three Nights!

Welcome to the world of hippodrome stands, tail drags, ocean waves, and Texas skips! It’s the world of trick riding and roping, and we’re darn excited to bring this world to life before your very eyes at each performance of this year’s rip-roarin’, bronc-stompin’ Burke Stampede Rodeo! The  Stampede Committee has teamed up with some wonderful sponsors to bring to you the breathtaking trick riding and trick roping of the world-famous Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls, all the way from Three Rivers, California. 

The story of the Riata Ranch started when 12-year-old Tom felt there were few other sports opportunities available to them. The gymnastics training soon evolved, progressing from vaults on a stationary horse to trick-riding feats on galloping horses. 

In May of 1976, the first Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls’ team was founded, and four 13-year-old girls performed at their first professional rodeo in Bakersfield, California. The rest is history as the Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls have performed in 22 countries on 5 continents. They have cemented their reputation as an international western performance troupe, appearing at rodeos and events around the world such as the Wrangler National Finals in Las Vegas, Pendleton Round Up, Cheyenne Frontier Days, Opening Ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, the Tournament of Roses Parade, the American Bowl in Barcelona Spain, and the Diamond Jubilee in London, England in 2012 in honor of Queen Elizabeth’s 60 years on the throne. Current ranch Executive Director Jennifer Nicholson, who started with Riata in the mid-1970s and became a superb rider, roper, and performer, actually met Her Majesty and spoke with her about Riata Ranch. Jennifer relates, “What a thrill to meet one of the most well-known world leaders in our modern era — and it’s all because I learned to spin a rope on horseback.” 

The Riata Ranch program builds confidence, self-esteem, perseverance, discipline, integrity, and grit. The team consists of masterful equestrians from the United States and Australia, making this the only international team in professional rodeo. The young ladies learn and perform incredible feats on their horses, but Jennifer Nicholson is most proud of the amazing young ladies they are in and out of the barn. For all of their old Tommy Maier left his North Dakota home and landed in Hollywood. There, he got a job training horses for movie stars and as a Hollywood stunt rider, appearing in a number of westerns alongside actor Ronald Reagan, and he also doubled for Elizabeth Taylor in “National Velvet”. Preferring ranch work to making movies, Maier honed his riding and roping skills and went on to become a professional rodeo cowboy. His rodeo career was cut short by a car accident one night after an event. In need of money to support his wife and two young sons, Maier accepted a job teaching a local district attorney’s daughter how to ride. Word got out, and soon other parents were asking Maier to teach horsemanship to their children. And as such, The Riata Ranch was born, with a mission to teach horsemanship, western values, cowboy skills, and rodeo stunts to kids. 

The importance of chores and the philosophy that “every job counts and every action is noticed” became a defining foundation, along with the concept of young people learning life skills built on the Code of the West. Eventually, Tom introduced yet another pursuit: A gymnastics program emphasizing physical fitness. By now, Riata was concentrating increasingly on girls, and with international appeal and experience, the Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls are uniquely and utterly American. It seems only fitting that as the Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls celebrate 50 years of bringing the values and traditions of the great American West , the cowboy, and the cowgirl to audiences around the world, that we bring them to you, our great Stampede fans, as a way of celebrating America’s 250th birthday. Our America, built on the values and traditions of the great American West. It promises to be an experience of a lifetime, and it’s all happenin’ at the Burke Stampede!