Neat news coming out of Texas this week in professional bullriding (which is totally a sport.)  Apparently, many female bullriders had competed in Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) shows for prize money.  But until this week, no woman had ever won prize money in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA).  Now, 19 year-old bullrider (is that the correct terminology?  Someone who has experience in this area please help us) Maggie Parker has broken that ceiling, finishing sixth in bull riding at the May 31-June 2 Bennington Kansas PRCA Rodeo.

Bullrider Maggie Parker (via www.willows-journal.com.)

If you look at the current roster on the PRCA website, it is entirely male.  Parker’s win is clearly historic for the organization and the sport as a whole.  However, we don’t know enough about bullriding to really expound on this, so we’ll let the experts do the talking.  Brett Hoffman, sports columnist for the Amarillo Globe-News, had this to say about Parker’s achievement:

Maggie Parker, 19, who lives in Fort Gibson, Okla., became the first bovine buster to visit the pay window in the PRCA (founded in 1936) after finishing sixth in bull riding at the May 31-June 2 Bennington (Kan.) PRCA Rodeo.  She also became the second woman to earn prize money in a PRCA bucking stock event.  Kaila Mussell was the first after finishing in the money in saddle bronc riding during a 2002 PRCA show in Prineville, Ore.  Parker placed in a field of 38 bull riders.  “The important thing is how many girls and women I inspired,” Parker said. “This shows that women can do anything they set their mind to.”

I hope that Parker’s achievement really is an inspiration to the many women who grow up exposed to the bullriding circuit.  Surely she’s not the only woman who has ever been interested in participating, and as we have said many times before, the more women want to participate, the more opportunities that will open up.