Native Houstonian Rachel Racz has plenty on her plate this month: raising three young children while serving as Nasdaq’s head of listings for Texas, the southern United States and Latin America.
In that role, Racz is helping shape the evolution of “Y’all Street,” the state’s growing financial ecosystem. Meanwhile, her five-year-old daughter is at just the right age to launch her career in mutton bustin’, one of the most beloved events of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which kicks off March 2.
Rachel Racz of Nasdaq gives an interview during the 8th Annual Permian Basin BBQ Cook-off, hosted by Daniel Energy Partners?on Nov. 12, 2025.? (B. Kay Richter/Midland Reporter-Telegram)
Mutton bustin’, Racz explained on a visit to Houston last week, is the event where small children strap climb onto a sheep and hold on for as long as possible – a few seconds, typically. Perhaps as many as eight seconds, if the little tyke is really good. The sport is taken seriously in the Racz household: there’s a reason she and her husband named their daughter Davy Ruthless, after all.
“A faceful of dirt, a lifetime of memories,” Racz said.
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Racz served as a mutton bustin’ announcer at the Houston Rodeo for six years, after being recruited while serving on the Rodeo’s chicken committee – one of more than 30,000 volunteers who support the Rodeo each year. (Key qualification for announcers, she added: not being afraid to be loud.)
She’s learned a lot about mutton bustin’, she said, as a result of her announcing career. Kids tend to instinctively grab onto the sheep with their legs, for example, but as a matter of technique, they should also use their arms. For training purposes, parents can prove useful: Some competitors at the event, held nightly in NRG Stadium and daily in The Junction, like to prepare by going a few rounds on the back of their dad.
Racz said her experience as a mutton bustin’ announcer has helped inform her work on Y’all Street, too. It takes courage, she observed, for a small child to clamber onto a farmyard animal, a creature that humans don’t normally ride, and hope for the best – in front of judges, fellow competitors and a rowdy crowd, no less.
“It’s about grit,” she said. “It’s about confidence.”
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“Y’all Street,” to be clear, does not refer to a physical address. The term has gained traction in recent years to describe Texas’s growing financial ecosystem, which includes a new system of specialized business courts, expanded operations by financial institutions such as JPMorgan, and the forthcoming launch of the Texas Stock Exchange or TXSE, headquartered in Dallas.
Nasdaq is growing in Texas, too. The stock exchange, headquartered in New York, last year opened a new regional headquarters in Dallas and announced plans for Nasdaq Texas as a dual listing venue: the official launch will take place March 5 in San Antonio, at the Alamo.
“For us, this is really looking at where the economy is moving, where businesses are moving, where our clients are moving,” Racz said.
Having grown up in Houston, she said, she has not been surprised to see the growth of the state economy during the course of her professional career. Texas already has the eighth largest economy in the world, she noted: “We’re going to become a top five.”
“It’s fundamentally who we are as Texans,” Racz said. “We are gritty, we are entrepreneurial, and we’re people that work together and work as a community to grow.”
And – at least for the next few weeks – we’re people who encourage small children to climb onto sheep, and go.
This article originally published at A lifetime of lessons: How mutton bustin’ at the Houston Rodeo helped inspire Y’all Street leaders.