Rodeo de Santa Fe

The Rodeo de Santa Fe grounds lie at 3237 Rodeo Road, at Paseo de los Pueblos, a few minutes from downtown Santa Fe. Cars come in by two entrances, one off Richards Avenue and one off Paseo de los Pueblos. On rodeo nights the Boy Scouts run the parking and ask for donations, and the rodeo’s own notes call it their largest fundraiser. Gates and ticket offices open at 5 p.m. Inside, concessions, vendors, and beer and wine are sold in every seating area. No outside food or drink is allowed. A rodeo store sells hats, cups and T-shirts. The show goes on rain or shine, because, in the organizers’ words, contestants come from all over the country.

Sheep at 6:30, bulls last

At 6:30 the smallest riders go first. Mutton Bustin’, which the rodeo calls “wild and wooly,” puts children on sheep before each evening performance. Youth barrel racers share that part of the bill. The Grand Entry follows at 7:00.

Every performance is a full PRCA contest: bareback bronc riding, steer wrestling, tie-down roping, ladies breakaway roping, saddle bronc riding, team roping, barrel racing, and, in the program’s phrase, “last but by far not least, bull riding.” Andrews Rodeo Company supplies the stock. Between events come the clowns, the rodeo royalty and a specialty act. In 2024 the act was the trick riding team “Rider and Bethany,” Rider Kiesner and Bethany Iles, who began performing separately as children. The clown that year was Ronald Burton, named the Cowboys Professional Rodeo Association’s Contract Act of the Year 12 times. The bullfighters were Cauy Kraut and Colt Odor, Odor from Portales. Kraut was still with the rodeo in September 2026, when its page wished a happy birthday to “our Bull Fighter, Cauy Kraut.”

The rodeo says nearly 500 contestants came the year before, many of them world champions, and the rodeo calls itself one of the top 60 PRCA rodeos in the nation. The Santa Fe New Mexican, writing in 2024, put part of the draw down to timing. The dates fall in the stretch of the season cowboys call “Cowboy Christmas,” when competitors plan routes through events across the West from June through the summer. The paper also cited $5,000 added to the prize money through sponsor donations. Some of the riders go on to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas in December.

The 77th annual rodeo ran June 24–27, 2026. Wednesday was Family Night, with one child 10 and under admitted free with a paid adult general admission ticket. Thursday gave free general admission to military and first responders with ID. In 2024 the Friday performance was Tough Enough to Wear Pink Night, and that year’s listing included a carnival midway.

A Saturday morning arena, and a queen at the State Fair

On the Saturday morning of rodeo week, before the evening crowd comes, the grounds hold the Exceptional Rodeo. It is open to children and adults with physical and mental exceptionalities and runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Roy Butler Memorial Arena. Participants ride a “bucking barrel,” rope hay bales and run stick horse races, and rodeo volunteers help contestants into the arena as needed. The New Mexican described it in 2024 as a chance for the special needs community to rope a calf, race around barrels and poles on a horse, or ride a bucking bull or bronco. The paper called it a staple of the past several years.

The rodeo crowns a queen and a princess each year to represent it. The 2026 queen, Micaela Hidalgo, spent two weeks that September at the New Mexico State Fair in Albuquerque with the other Rodeo de Santa Fe royalty. They helped with the horse shows, talked with fairgoers in the aisles, served dinner at the exceptional horse show awards, rode in four grand entry performances, and made pool noodle ponies at the horse arena. On September 19, 2026, Hidalgo was crowned the 2027 New Mexico State Fair Queen and also won the personality and horsemanship awards. Gabby Sanchez, also competing for the rodeo, took home the second runner-up bracelet. “RDSF Represented well this year,” the rodeo posted.

Ragle’s airport field, 1949

Roy Butler, whose name is now on that Saturday arena, was one of the founders. The others the rodeo names are Austin “Slim” Green, Gene Petchesky, Paul Ragle, Paul Rutledge “and a few others,” who in 1949, by the rodeo’s account, “had a dream and determination to organize a professional rodeo in Santa Fe.” A 2013 New Mexico Senate memorial gives the fourth founder as Paul Rage, though it names the site as Ragle’s. Its account tells how the founders gathered others who shared “a love of rodeo, riding, roping and the western way of life.” With volunteers they built the arena and chutes at a place called Ragle’s airport field, then four miles outside town. The first Rodeo de Santa Fe was held there in the summer of 1949.

El Toro Diablo and the parade

In 1952 Will Shuster, the man who designed and built Zozobra, made a figure called El Toro Diablo as his personal entry in the annual rodeo parade. It became the rodeo’s mascot.

The 2013 memorial describes the parade as it then opened the rodeo. The flag came first, followed by the rodeo committee and the rodeo queen with her court. Behind them came floats from local businesses, clubs, high schools and community leaders, while families, residents and tourists lined the streets.

Senator Phil A. Griego introduced that memorial, which declared February 19, 2013, “Rodeo de Santa Fe Day” in the Senate ahead of the 64th annual rodeo, June 19–22 of that year. It put the rodeo’s direct and indirect economic impact at about two million dollars. It also spoke of a proposed arena facility that would serve as a regional disaster relief facility as well.

The 75th rodeo ran June 19–22, 2024, and its Saturday was billed as 75th Rodeo de Santa Fe Night. Rodeo de Santa Fe, Inc., which runs the event, has set the 2027 rodeo for June 23–26.