Saddle bronc rider Mitch Pollock rides Korkow Rodeos’ Joker Poker during the 2025 Gooding Pro Rodeo. Korkow is one of three elite livestock producers who will return to southern Idaho next month.
(PHOTO BY LARA ST JACQUES)

 

Trio of stock contractors just add to the draw to southern Idaho rodeo

GOODING, Idaho – In Greek mythology, Cerberus was a three-headed dog who guarded the gates of the underworld.

In southern Idaho, Cerberus comes in the form of the three livestock producers who make everything grand at the Gooding Pro Rodeo presented by Idaho Ford Dealers, set for Thursday, Aug. 20-Saturday, Aug. 22, with a special “Beauty and the Beast” performance set for Wednesday, Aug. 19. All performances take place at 8 p.m. at Andy James Arena.

The three-headed monster? That’s Wyoming-based Summit Pro Rodeo, South Dakota-based Korkow Rodeos and Alberta-based Macza Pro Rodeo, and they combine to make one powerful entity.

“We know that if we want to continue to draw the top cowboys to our rodeo, we have to have good bucking stock,” said Don Gill, the fair and rodeo’s manager. “You’re not going to find any better set of bulls and horses than we have here in Gooding, and that’s because of the stock contractors that bring us their best stuff.”

The monster reared its head significantly in 2025. Richmond Champion rode Macza’s Stevie Knicks for 87.5 points to win the bareback riding title; that same athletic equine guided Bradlee Miller to a $50,000 payday earlier this month when he won the Calgary Stampede. Ten-time world champion Stetson Wright won the saddle bronc riding title in Gooding with a 90-point ride on Summit’s Cowboy Fool to tie an arena record with his dad, Cody Wright. Ky Hamilton scored 87.5 points to win the bull riding title on Korkow’s 883.

Big scores and big rides defined last year’s Gooding Pro Rodeo, but that’s nothing new. Last year’s champions were a who’s who of National Finals Rodeo qualifiers; every event but one was won by a cowboy or cowgirl who has played the game at the sport’s super bowl.

The bucking animals have been there, too. Nineteen of the horses and bulls that bucked in Gooding were featured at the NFR in December. That includes Macza’s Stevie Knicks, Summit’s Cowboy Fool and several others that bucked lights out at the fairgrounds.

“T.J. (Korkow) has got a great set of horses, and they get bucked a lot,” said Damian Brennan, who won the Gooding saddle bronc riding title in 2024 on Korkow’s Me Mojo. “They keep performing every time, so he’s got a really good string of horses.”

The same can be said for Summit and Macza. Stevie Knicks has been part of big-time rides over the last decade. In 2019, Clayton Biglow clinched his bareback riding world championship with a 93-point ride on the athletic bay. Miller was 92.5 points to win Calgary on July 12.

“Some guys are scared to pick her because she’s so strong,” Miller said that day.

That strength carries over to everyone and everything else. Take Cowboy Fool, which guided Wright to the title last August. Fellow bronc rider Weston Patterson won the NFR’s eighth round with an 89-point ride on the powerful bucker. Australian Darcey Radel was also 89 to win Utah’s Own PRCA Rodeo last September.

“That is another great horse I’ve been pretty lucky to get on,” Radel said. “I’d seen him in Castle Rock (Colorado), and he was just awesome.

“It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Moments like that are why animals like that are in the mix at Las Vegas.

“It was a great horse,” Patterson said. “He’s a bucker. They’ve won on him all year long, so I knew I had a chance.”

That’s all cowboys want when they get to a rodeo, and the trio of livestock producers in Gooding gives them plenty.