WAIMEA — Celebrating family and paniolo heritage, Parker Ranch hosted its 55th annual July 4th Rodeo and Horse Races on Tuesday in from of a packed, standing room only crowd.
Paniolo of all ages from various ranches across the Big Island competed in five different events, providing family oriented entertainment to all those in attendance.
For RK Livestock’s Kuulei Kealealani, just seeing all the familes coming together for the annual event makes the rodeo a special one.
“A lot of the younger kids here have been born in to this and it is great to see different generations of families be successful,” Keakealani said. “The children are our heritage keepers. They are maintaining the legacy.”
The premier event of the day during was the horse racing. A Parker Ranch specialty, paniolo hopped on their horses and raced from two different distances — a quarter-mile and one-eighth-mile.
As usual, the host ranch dominated the competition. In the one-eighth-mile race, three Parker Ranch riders filled out the finals with Dusty DeLuz out-riding veterans of the sport with a winning time of 12.661 seconds.
“It was a race against veterans and it was good fun,” DeLuz said of his photo finish victory. “It was nice to beat Klem (Kaniho). He always wins.”
Parker Ranch’s Scott Spence won the quarter-mile race in a time of 24.864.
With two of the three horse racing events claimed, Parker Ranch looked for a clean sweep with the final event of the evening, the highly anticipated relay. This unique race has paniolo from two different ranches compete in an event where riders on horses try to pass batons to other riders on horses as they race to the finish line.
The Parker Ranch team of Spence, Brandon Hoopai and Klem Kaniho defeated the Ernest DeLuz Ranch team of Shane DeLuz, Ala Lindsey and Jary Rapozo.
While horse racing was the main draw, the rodeo also included the Poo Wai U, a event originated in Hawaii where a single rider on horseback ropes the steer by the horns and then maneuvers it to a forked stand also known as an amana. The rider then dismounts and ties the steer to the amana with a non-choke knot.
KL Cross Ranch’s “PeeWee” Lindsey Barkley was one of the many paniolo who competed in various events throughout the morning. But she actually competed in one more event than she planned.
“We needed five to enter the Poo Wai U and I was able to borrow a good horse, so that is why I entered,” Barkley joked. “This is a fun, family rodeo and I loved watching the events, especially the horse racing. There are so many generations here and it was awesome that I was asked to compete.”
Team Roping, ranch mugging, junior and senior ribbon mugging and keiki barrel racing rounded out the rodeo.