A Stockyards Sunday in Fort Worth: Two Cattle Drives, the Herd Experience and a Rodeo Matinee
The Fort Worth Herd drives longhorns down East Exchange Avenue at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Sunday, the free Herd Experience runs 1:30 to 2:30, and the Stockyards Championship Rodeo holds a 1:30 p.m. matinee at Cowtown Coliseum.
Fort Worth's Sunday runs on a schedule older than the buildings around it. The Fort Worth Herd — the world's only twice-daily cattle drive, in the words of Visit Fort Worth — drives its longhorns down East Exchange Avenue at 11:30 a.m. and again at 4 p.m. on Sunday, as it does every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. The drive is free, lasts about eight minutes, and runs from the Fort Worth Petting Zoo at 157 East Exchange Avenue past the Livestock Exchange Building; streets close five minutes before each drive, and the standing advice is to arrive thirty minutes early for a viewing spot.
Between the drives, the Herd's drovers host the free Fort Worth Herd Experience from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. on Sunday at the observation deck northeast of the Livestock Exchange Building — an hour on 1800s cattle drives and herd care, with the drovers taking questions. The same hour, one block over, the Stockyards Championship Rodeo opens its Sunday matinee at 1:30 p.m. inside Cowtown Coliseum at 121 East Exchange Avenue, with tie-down roping, breakaway roping, team roping and barrel racing alongside bull riding, bronc riding, bareback and ranch saddle bronc riding.
One caution travels with the whole program: the cattle drives can be canceled for extreme weather or lightning, with announcements posted on the Fort Worth Herd's social accounts. Sunday's live forecast for Fort Worth is fog in the morning and a high near 75 with only a small rain chance — drive weather, on the feed's current reading.
