GREEN COVE SPRINGS – After selling out shows during the last two years, the JC Kitaif Pro Rodeos decided to make a good thing even better.

In addition to a full rodeo lineup on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 4-5, a third day was added to the schedule with bull riding and barrel racing on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Cattlemen’s Arena at the Clay County Fairgrounds.

“We're Labor Day weekend, and we're three days this year,” said rodeo general manager Jade Kitaif. “We're Friday and Saturday night like we always have been, but on third day, Sunday, we're having just a big professional bull riding and barrel racing. So that’s an extra performance for this year. We're going to open the gates at 4 o'clock on Friday and Saturday and noon on Sunday.”

Kitaif said Sunday’s performance will last two hours.

The rodeo has been wildly popular. In 2024, officials were forced to cut off sales nearly an hour before the first bronc lurched from the gate.

The show is more than bareback bronc, saddle bronc and bull riding, team and calf roping, steer wrestling, women’s barrel racing, mutton busting and trick riding. It also includes food trucks, vendors, children’s games, mechanical bull riding, pony rides, music and exhibitions.

“We'll kind of have the same pre-rodeo market,” Kitaif said. “We've got a few more vendors and food trucks. We’ll have a DJ for line dancing. So. we've got more things for the people to do pre-rodeo shows, exhibitions, that kind of stuff.”

Rodeos have become a big business, Kitaif said, because it’s one of the most affordable forms for family fun.

“You know, we had a rodeo in St. Augustine in March, and I think that this area just really gets a lot of fan base,” Kitaif said. “People want to go to the rodeo.

“I mean, we're only $15 pre-sale tickets, so we're still a relatively very cheap form of family entertainment. You can't really go to the movies and have a $15 ticket. So, adults are $15, kids are $10 pre-sale. But day of show is like $20 for adults, $15 for kids.”

Advance tickets are available at jckitaifprorodeos.com.

Since returning to Clay County in 2024, Kitaif said the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association has been committed to making the annual stop one of the biggest on the circuit.

“That's the goal for us and for the county is to always do something to make it grow or to try to make it grow,” she said. “That was our commitment to just trying to be a Clay County legacy event, so we went to three days this year. We wanted to do anything to make it grow, to be better. Rodeo has a really big professional rodeo. For the PRCA, they've done a lot of studies, and it brings in $200,000 to $300,000 in economic impact for a three-day, a two- or three-day event.”