Battle of the Sexes
From Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo
It was a battle of the sexes that never came to pass. Not that Mabel Strickland and other cowgirls didn’t try in 1924. Emboldened by their skills and growing popularity among rodeo fans from Pendleton to New York to London, they wanted to compete directly with the cowboys.
Who could blame them? The prize money was richer and the trophies larger. Riding bucking broncos and wrestling steers to the ground, the women faced the same dangers as men. The prowess and daring of Strickland, Fox Hastings, Lorena Trickey, Prairie Rose Henderson, and others were evident. A month before the Round-Up that year, Strickland had the second best time in steer roping among cowboys and cowgirls at the Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Two years earlier at the Round-Up, she had roped and tied down a steer in eighteen seconds, close to the men’s world record.