EVENTS
Trick Rider
Nancy Bragg Witmer was born at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1926. Her rodeo career began when she was given her first horse at age 12. She started trick riding in 1940 on Texas Clipper, a flashy Palomino with lots of speed. Her father trained him and she worked several small rodeos mostly in Oklahoma. Witmer spent a summer in Ardmore, Oklahoma, with Florence Randolph, who taught her many of the techniques in the Cossack-inspired art of trick riding.
Within a few years, Nancy Bragg Witmer originated the trick some called the “Falling Tower,” which she simply called a “Back Bend.” She did trick riding at Madison Square Garden and at the Boston Garden for seven consecutive years. She also had a desire to be a rodeo competitor and she entered barrel racing, calf roping and cutting events. In 1954 and 1955, she won the Girls Rodeo Association cutting horse championships.
In 1956, Witmer broke the same leg twice so she decided to end her rodeo career. She and Bill Witmer married in 1960 and raised a son and two daughters. She was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1997, and has served on the Board of Directors of the Rodeo Historical Society at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Nancy Bragg Witmer passed in 2014.
