Vold's last hometown rodeo
August 28, 2025
PUEBLO, CO., – The Colorado State Fair marked the last hometown rodeo Kirsten Vold will stock contract after selling the Harry Vold Rodeo Company. Vold returned to help her dad, legendary stock contractor and Duke of the Chutes, the late Harry Vold nearly 30 years ago.
When the Volds began supplying the stock for the Colorado State Fair rodeo about 45 years ago, Harry Vold was contracting rodeos in the Pacific Northwest but jumped at the opportunity to contract his hometown show. Kirsten said she was old enough to remember attending the CSF rodeo as a child though she doesn’t know the exact year it was added to the Vold schedule. As her hometown rodeo, it has always been a special show.
“I came back fulltime in 1997 and started taking the reins in more of a managerial role, so it’s been 28 years, and it went by quick, I’m not going to lie,” she said.
At the time, her dad was contemplating selling the business, something she said was incomprehensible to her at the time.
“I blinked and here we are 28 years later,” she said.
Vold said there isn’t just one particular story that illustrates how her father taught her the business of stock contracting. He was, she said, a man of his word.
“I still have a rodeo committee where we have nothing written on paper, it’s always been a handshake deal,” she said. “That was just how he operated, and I’ve been lucky enough to continue that. Just do what you say you’re going to do. Your word is really the only thing that’s yours that no one can take away from you, it doesn’t cost anything, but you just have to make sure that whatever you say is what you’re going to do.”
Vold sold the rodeo company and stock to Jerry Nelson, owner of Frontier Rodeo in Freedom, Oklahoma. Nelson and Vold were longtime friends and when Nelson was getting into the contracting business, Vold sold him some stock and supported him, something Nelson was always quick to recognize as one of the drivers of his success.
In turn, when so many of Kirsten’s mares and foals went back to her great stud Painted Valley, it was Frontier who sent her a stud horse to use.
“You need to mix up your blood a little bit,” she said. “They’ve been kind enough to loan me a stud for the past five years so a lot of these horses I sold them is part of their breeding program already. It was a natural move.”
Painted Fling, a son of Painted Valley, opened the CSF rodeo nightly, trotting around the arena with some mares and foals to highlight the bucking horse genetics about to be on display.
“We’re very lucky to have the genetics that we do and I’m excited that they’ll be able to carry on and continue to mix in with the Frontier bloodlines because they have some great ones, obviously,” she said. “You don’t get to be the 11-time Stock Contractor of the Year and be in the top position that they’re in – they do The American, they do so many large rodeos – this is my hometown rodeo and it would be hard for me to let somebody else come in and do it if I wasn’t confident that they’ll do an outstanding job.”
The million-dollar question of what she’ll do beginning in 2026 is one she said she can’t answer. For now, she’s focused on wrapping up the remaining rodeos.
“I’m going to worry about ’26 when it gets here,” she said. “All I’m really worried about right now is that we don’t phone in the last four months of the year. It’s very important to me that for every event we have ahead of us, we do the very best job we can and that we can have the best rodeo we ever had. Once December rolls around and we’re officially out, then I’ll worry about what’s going on next year.”
She said the unknown doesn’t scare her, it’s exciting, though she does know she won’t be selling her Pueblo ranch. She has a stud and a handful of mares as well as weanling colts that will stay on the ranch and she said she plans to continue breeding bucking stock, which was always her favorite part of the business. She said the bucking horse futurities were never an option being on the road as a contractor, so she may dabble in those events as well.
“I’ve had a few people wanting to buy colts in the future and I can see that as something where I can play a little bit and raising them was always my passion,” she said. “The cool part about that is you still play a hand in sending great bucking horses out on the road which is a very important role in rodeo.”
Salt Lake City, the Mountain State Circuit Finals, the Working Ranch Cowboys Association Finals, and the National Finals in Las Vegas remain on the schedule for the remainder of the year. The sale of the company will be final at the end of the year.
Source: Rachel Gabel
