EVENTS
Saddle Bronc Rider
On a cold, windy, April day, a pair of worn chaps and a cowboy hat lay atop Floyd Stillings’ coffin at his funeral in Cody, Wyoming. One of rodeo’s greatest rough-stock riders–and one of its toughest characters–Stillings said of himself, “I led a wildcat’s life. You had to be about half bronco to do it.”
Born in Atchison, Kansas, in 1904, Stillings ran away from home with a Wild West Show at 13, but he soon hired out to break horses for the U.S. Army in Montana. A seasoned bronc rider when he entered the sport around 1921, he also rode bulls and wrestled steers at all the major U.S. venues and in Japan, Australia, and England. A knee injury put him out of contention in bulldogging and bull riding in 1930.
In 1932, his greatest year, Floyd Stillings captured saddle bronc-riding titles in 29 of 36 rodeos. He also won at Chicago in 1927, Cheyenne in 1929, Madison Square Garden in 1932 and 1933, and Pendleton in 1933. Along the way, this resilient bronc buster successfully rode Five Minutes to Midnight five times. Floyd Stillings retired from competition in 1942 to train race horses in California. He died in 1995.
