Lazy P Rodeo receives national award

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Lazy P Rodeo company is celebrating having been awarded Bull Riders Canada’s Event of the Year for their Last Cowboy Standing, hosted in Strathmore.

Cale Pribyl, who owns and operates Lazy P Rodeo, said it is quite the achievement to receive such tremendous recognition from those in the Canadian rodeo circuit, especially for a company so young.

“The award is given every year to the event that is voted on by the riders and everyone’s personnel in the Association on which event they felt was best. It is quite an honour.” he said. “This is our second year running the event and we achieved this award … we have gotten a lot of positive feedback about the energy of the event.”

Pribyl attributed their success greatly to the amount of rides which were able to take place during their event, their social media presence, and the overall environment of being on the grounds in Strathmore.

He added the goal, ultimately, for the upcoming rodeo season will be to continue to grow the Last Cowboy Standing, as well as for the company to host more events, and to contribute to other rodeo events in the area.

“We are hoping to keep growing, spectator-wise. Obviously, we would love to have even more and more people, but we are limited to seating space,” said Pribyl, continuing on the topic of growth for his event. 

“We are going to try and figure out ways to seat more people and maybe make some more money so the bull riders get a larger prize and make it another thing that Strathmore is known for.”

With the restrictions imposed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic largely lifted, Pribyl added he is looking forward to a virtually unimpeded rodeo season, as there in theory should be less need to reschedule events and have overlapping rodeo dates throughout the circuit. 

Additionally, he is aiming to have the Lazy P Rodeo company beginning to host more events itself throughout the course of the rodeo season.

Now that the team has claimed success with the Event of the Year award once, they will be looking to maintain that established standard of excellence going forward.

“We will just keep trying to do our best, and hopefully just keep the excitement and that overall atmosphere growing and hopefully if we can keep the momentum running, that would be awesome,” said Pribyl. “We are kind of a younger, newer company in the industry with kind of a fresher, different approach. We are approaching our events based on a lot more excitement, and being close with a lot of the riders definitely sets us apart.”

Pribyl is encouraging fans of bull riding and rodeo to keep an eye out to see when they can catch Lazy P Rodeo’s events in the circuit once riding season returns.