INNISFAIL, Alta. – A passion for rodeo and the cowboy life is a 49-year-old legacy for the Daines family of Innisfail.
The Daines Ranch Rodeo has been running at the family ranch since the early 1960s when a young Jack Daines wanted a place to practice the sport with his six brothers.
“My dad’s real passion is rodeo,” said Duane Daines of his father Jack.
Today the privately run event is one of Canada’s highest paying professional rodeos.
Set on a grassy hill overlooking the arena, the 20 acre site has become a go-to event in mid June where families can camp and get close to the pros. The four-day event attracts about 20,000 people.
Read Also
Machinery automation runs through 2025 Agritechnica innovation awards
Computer vision and AI processing for farm machinery show up many times in Agritechnica’s 2025 innovation award winners.
“It’s been a long-time rodeo so it has become traditional that this is what you do in the middle of June, go see a top professional rodeo,” said Daines.
The event was sanctioned as a professional rodeo in the 1960s and for 25 years staged a little britches rodeo.
It was at the kids’ rodeo where mutton busting was invented. Daines did not want his children trying to ride cows, so he came up with the idea of riding sheep, now seen at rodeos everywhere.
The rodeo is also unique in that it is privately run, relying on sponsorship money to pay the livestock contractors and the rodeo cowboys.
This year, more than $140,000 was offered in payouts.
“We have never accepted a dollar of government money,” he said.
Government gives millions to agriculture societies for exhibition and rodeo facilities but they decided to remain a private enterprise.
“I think it is great the government puts up these facilities and we probably should have formed an ag society and built a million dollar covered indoor facility, but we just haven’t,” he said.
“When you run your own, you can do what you want to do.”
As a sanctioned professional rodeo, there are the seven main events: bareback, team roping, ladies barrel racing, bull riding, saddle bronc, tie down roping and steer wrestling. Points and money earned at this event are counted in overall results for those moving on to the Canadian and world championships.
It also gives younger entrants a special permit to help them obtain professional status where they place and win money against the pros.
That has been a legacy for three generations of cowboys.
“There are kids there now whose grandfathers probably rode at Innisfail,” Daines said.
This year’s rodeo had 624 contestants plus 100 mutton busters and 40 peewee contestants and junior barrel racers, said Barb Branson, who works at the Innisfail auction owned by the Daines family and helps with the event behind the scenes.
Plans are underway for the 50th anniversary rodeo next year.
“In our program, nothing is ever written down in stone but we are going to try to offer as much money as we can for the cowboys because we put it on for them. When you treat them right, you are going to have a good rodeo,” Daines said.
It has been a good run for the 72-year-old patriarch, Jack Daines.
Born in Innisfail in 1936, he participated in his first rodeo riding steers when he was 12. He went on to professional saddle bronc and bull riding.
This spring he was inducted into the Alberta sports hall of fame at Red Deer and he has also been honoured by the Canadian professional rodeo association and is a member of the Canadian Professional Rodeo hall of fame.
