The future of rodeo is strong based on a couple of things I learned today.

I just watched a Facebook video from steer wrestler Spud Duvall, who posted a clip of his young son, Treagan, bailing off a toddler scooter onto a stuffed animal and grappling the “steer” to the ground. I suspect it won’t be long before Treagan is doing it in the Duvalls’ arena off a real horse onto a real steer.

In visiting with Odessa (Texas) College freshman Paige Conrado, who just won the Sandhills Stock Show & Rodeo in Odessa, I learned that the Colorado cowgirls is the daughter of a couple of barrel horse trainers. You can say she was destined to be a barrel racer. As she says, “I was pretty much born on the back of a horse.”

She was en route to Denver for the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo, her hometown event. I suspect she’d love to win that one even more than winning Odessa.