EVENTS
Rodeo Clown
Rodeo Bullfighter
Hoyt Hefner, born in 1911 in Texas, learned to ride on the Langford Ranch, near Wichita Falls. After entering professional rodeo at age 17 at Fort Worth, he specialized in bull riding and bareback riding, but he entered all events and regularly won during the 1930s.
In 1942 Hoyt Hefner developed a clown act and started bullfighting. “Hoot,” as he was known, rode a brown mule named Martha Raye, one of the best clown animals in the business. Hefner often teamed with John Lindsey in one of rodeo’s most popular contract acts. Traveling more than 35,000 miles a year, Hoot and Martha played at venues small and large, “fighting” an average of 1,800 bulls every season. He rescued hundreds of bull riders from “mad dynamite on hoofs.”
Said one admiring cowboy, “I’d come out on a rattlesnake upside down, even if I knew I’d get bucked off, ’cause I’d know Hefner’d be there to rescue me.” Hoyt Hefner retired from the arena in 1963 and died in Oklahoma City in 1977.
