Recent heavy rains have forced organizers to postpone the Santa Maria Valley’s first intercollegiate rodeo competition until the fall. 

Instead of mid-March, organizers announced Tuesday that Hancock College Boosters Inc. delayed the inaugural Allan Hancock College Rodeo Spring RoundUp “for the safety of our animal athletes and college rodeo contestants.”

The event will take place Oct. 5 and 6 at the Santa Maria Elks/Unocal Event Center. 

Planning for the event has been underway since the hiring of Hancock College Rodeo Team and Club’s new coach, Tyree Cochrane, who assumed the job in July and immediately began planning.

Hancock’s team will fill the role of the host as rodeo athletes from the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association‘s West Coast Region converge to compete in Santa Maria, giving the Hancock team a home arena advantage.

“It’s awesome,” Cochrane said before the delay. “It’s always nice to be able to go and rodeo somewhere it’s your home field basically,” 

Having a rodeo team at Hancock College has long been a dream of Jim Glines, chief executive officer of the Hancock College Boosters. 

“We’ve always talked a lot about baseball, football, basketball,” Glines said. “Rodeo is every bit as important. There are kids that go to school just to rodeo, just like there’s kids that go to school to play other sports.”

The new coach, a 2017 graduate of Arroyo Grande High School, has a long history of competing in rodeo including with the California High School Rodeo Association’s District 7 and served as student secretary and president. 

Cochrane has worked toward earning a master’s degree in animal science from Cal Poly, continued to compete as a Cal Poly rodeo team member and served as student president of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association for two terms.

She also was among the top 10 of the college rodeo breakaway ropers in the nation.

And she still competes. Santa Barbara fans may recognize her as the winner of the breakaway roping event at the 2023 Fiesta Rodeo. 

Other athletes for the Santa Maria rodeo likely will come from Feather River Community College, Fresno State University, West Hill Community College, Bakersfield College, Cal Poly, Cuesta College and University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

Additionally, athletes who attend educational institutions without teams can compete individually in college rodeo. 

In total, they expected slightly more than 200 athletes to compete in events including barrel racing, breakaway roping, goat tying, team roping, bull riding, saddle bronc riding, bareback riding, tie down roping and steer wrestling.

Hancock’s team includes Sutton Mang from Goleta who, like her coach, also landed in the top ten of college breakaway ropers. 

Organizers say they continue to seek sponsors including for belt buckles presented to winners. More information is available by sending an email to AHCrodeo@gmail.com. 

In addition to general admission tickets, other options include box seats and VIP tables. 

Anyone who already purchased tickets for the March dates may opt to roll those over to the October event or request a refund. 

For sponsorship or vendor information, send an email to ahcrodeo@gmail.com or call 805.503.9935.

Updates on the Hancock rodeo team are available on the Facebook and Instagram social media pages.