The legendary stock contractor and bronc breeder opens up about her upbringing, career, and love for horses on C&I’s newest podcast, Women of the West.
Donning her signature black Resistol hat with the rim bent from hours of hard labor, Kirsten Vold popped on Zoom with a smile on her face. The stock contractor and owner of Vold Rodeo Company is the first cowgirl to grace C&I’s Women of the West podcast — a monthly podcast focusing on singing the names of the West’s unsung female heroes, from rodeo athletes to artists to ranchers and beyond.
A legacy through and through, Vold is the daughter of famed stock contractor Harry Vold (aka The Duke of the Chutes) — a Canadian cowboy who revolutionized the rodeo industry by producing rodeos and providing some of the sport’s most accomplished bucking broncs. Vold Rodeo Company is one of only two stock contracting companies to provide stock to all National Finals Rodeos since 1959, and Kirsten does not take this prestige lightly.
After taking over her father’s rodeo company at just 25 years old, Vold found herself under the scrutiny of the rodeo community. “I was the youngest person, I was the girl, and I was the boss’ daughter,” she told C&I. “So, absolutely there was a lot of pressure to get it right and not screw up.” Twenty-eight years later, she still considers herself a work-in-progress, even after garnering honors such as an induction into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. “Being a pro doesn’t mean that you don’t make mistakes daily,” she noted.
Here are a few surprising things Kirsten Vold revealed to us during her podcast chat with C&I.
She was homeschooled for most of her childhood so she could travel the world with her father.
As the rodeo lifestyle demands constant travel, Vold found herself traveling the rodeo circuit with her father for the majority of her childhood. Since she wasn’t in one place for more than a few weeks at a time, she was homeschooled until her high school years, receiving her assignments in the mailbox and receiving tutoring in her father’s trailer. “I don’t have any regrets. I’m grateful for the way I grew up. I got to see a lot of countries and places that I probably would have never seen if I’d gone to eight years of public school,” she said. While she enjoyed traveling with her father as a child, she realized she needed a change when high school came around. “I wanted to go to public school by the time I’d gotten to high school, so I talked my parents into letting me do that.” As exciting as attending a public high school was, Vold definitely found the adjustment to be a bit of a struggle, especially in the athletics department. “The biggest thing I noticed was the weakness in my athletic ability,” she joked with C&I. “Everyone would look at my height and think, Oh, you must be good at this, and I was not.”
Her favorite rodeo is the one in her hometown.
While Vold and her bucking horses travel across the country attending countless rodeos each year, her favorite rodeo is the one that takes place just a half-hour away from her home — the Colorado State Fair & Rodeo every summer in Pueblo, Colorado, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from her ranch in Avondale. In addition to being chairman of the Colorado State Fair rodeo committee, she enjoys her participation in this particular rodeo due to its proximity to home: “Any time you can put on a rodeo and be able to go to sleep in your own bed that night, that’s a pretty cool thing.”
She wasn’t always a strictly black hat-wearer.
It’s rare that you’ll see Vold out on the ranch without her signature black Resistol hat. However, this wasn’t always the case. While on the rodeo circuit with her father, she was often made to carry the flag on horseback during the opening procession of each rodeo, regularly donning a colorful outfit. “Back then, they wanted to dress you in what they thought was cute, which was a red pair of pants and red hat or pink pair of pants and pink hat,” she told C&I. “I wanted a black hat, but they didn’t want me in a black hat. They only bought me colored hats. So, once I got old enough to get away from the colored hats, I haven’t done anything but black.” Would she ever go back to her roots and sport a full pink outfit again? “I don’t know how much alcohol that would take, but I think it would take quite a bit.”
Before taking over her father’s rodeo company, she worked for a record label.
After studying communication in college, Vold found her way to a licensing company called Rodeo America. At the time of her arrival, Rodeo America was in the process of developing an official PRCA album with a record label in New York City. Due to her ability to connect with virtually anyone, Vold was asked to assist in “grassroots connection.” “I’ll never forget, they flew me out to New York, and I made the deal for $5,000 a month plus my expenses,” she told C&I. “At that age, let me tell you, I thought I was never going to see a poor day as long as I lived.” At age 22, Vold was living a superstar life, flying around the world to promote the album. “When they flew me up to Toronto, I was like Julia Roberts jumping up and down on the bed in the hotel.”
She wasn’t expecting to take over her father’s rodeo company forever.
Vold has been the proud owner of Vold Rodeo Company for over 20 years now, but she didn’t always think this would be the case. After a whirlwind adventure with Rodeo America, she found herself back at her father’s ranch assisting with his workload. While she enjoyed being back with the cowboy lifestyle she knew and loved, she wasn’t expecting to spend the rest of her life there. “It was never a conscious thing where I thought this was what the next 28 years of my life would be,” she told C&I. “Dad was needing help, and I was not really enjoying where I was at in the moment, and so it was just a natural course of action.” Next thing you know, it’s almost three decades later and Vold is still running one of the biggest stock contracting companies to date.
She wasn’t always welcomed as the new owner of her father’s company.
While Vold does not regret taking over her father’s company, the transition wasn’t all sunshine and roses. A few of her father’s ranch hands were not especially receptive to the idea of taking orders from a young woman. “There was a couple that worked for him at the time, and I remember that they stormed out of the cookhouse and said that they wouldn’t work for me,” she remembered. But she took the skepticism in stride, learning on the job and letting the challenges make her stronger. “It wasn’t all good times. It was a lot of stress,” she said, “But I don’t think I’d be tough enough to do the things I need to do now if I hadn’t had that rocky road of learning.”
Her prized bucking bronc revolutionized bronc breeding.
Among the many notable bucking broncs in Vold’s herd, Painted Valley is one of the most influential. An unwanted colt from her father’s herd, Painted Valley was initially unpromising as a bucking horse due to being a late bloomer. Despite being constantly advised by her father and brother to cut him instead of keeping him as a stud, she continued to have faith in Painted Valley’s ability to produce successful bucking horses. Her faith eventually paid off when the horse’s offspring began to buck. “He ended up pretty much bringing our rodeo company back to life,” Vold said. “When Painted Valley came along and his colts started bucking, it really turned our program around.” Painted Valley’s gentle nature also made him a prime candidate for semen collection and eventual animal cloning — a scientific revelation. “Occasionally, you make the right decision,” Vold said. “It doesn’t always work that way, but this one turned out really good.”
If not for rodeo, she would be a professional organizer.
It’s hard to think about Vold doing anything other than rodeo, but the famed stock contractor is quite a gifted organizer. “I’ve been doing a mass closet organization for a good friend of mine. We’ve been working on it for several weeks, and it has really come along,” she said. “Organizing is kind of my jam. It’s something I can control in a world that I can’t control much.” Vold even joked about the possibility of being the star of an organizing reality TV show: “Maybe I’d be on one of those little shows where they go door-to-door organizing people’s houses.”
She’s a crime-show junkie.
In the rare moments when Vold isn’t working on the ranch or traveling the rodeo circuit, she likes to unwind with some TV. Her show of choice? A good crime drama. “I might’ve been an FBI agent if I hadn’t been in rodeo. I like a lot of crime shows and mysteries.” She’s particularly a fan of rewatching classics like Without a Trace and Cold Case, and, more recently, Paradise. In a life full of responsibility, Vold always tries to make time for herself. “Sometimes, I’ll take a look around the ranch, and there’s always stuff to do here,” she said. “But nothing is going to break or die, so I’m just going to leave and do something else for me right now.”
She’s got a simple goal in mind.
It’s no stretch to say Vold has already made her mark on the rodeo industry, but she’s not done working for positive change. “If I can leave something better than I found it, then I think that would be my legacy,” she told C&I. And she thanks her prized bucking broncs for helping her achieve that goal. “Those bucking horses that are out in that pasture are going to be the legacy that carries on after I’m not involved in rodeo anymore. Hopefully, the things I participated in will continue to grow.”
