Canadian legend on riders, bulls, and what makes him sick
CALGARY, Alberta (April 1, 2009) - Canada commands respect for producing world-class broncs and riders.
But the country also has its bull riding stars, such as Aaron Roy who competes on the 2009 PBR Built Ford Tough Series, Vince Northrop who rode in the 2008 World Finals, and Dusty Ephrom who earned a spot on the top tier tour this week after excelling in minor league shows.
One elder statesman who is looked up to by those cowboys is Cody Snyder, a Professional Bull Riders Ring of Honor member who in 1983 became the first Canadian two win a world bull riding title.
Snyder, 45, has been instrumental in the growth of PBR Canada. He dedicates lots of time to the development of younger, promising bull riders from his country and he produces some of the PBR’s events in Canada. Snyder also has served as team captain and coach for the Canadians at the PBR World Cup.
Snyder retired from bull riding in 1993 after qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo four times and the Canadian Finals Rodeo nine times. Throughout his career, Snyder worked around a string of injuries, including broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken collar-bone, torn groin muscles and a dislocated shoulder. He opted to retire after suffering a serious wrist injury.
Upon his retirement, Snyder found ways to stay in the bull riding business. Along with his wife and business partner Rhonda Schlenker-Snyder, Snyder incorporated a bull riding production company called Cody Snyder’s BullBustin’. His company has produced more than 200 pro bull riding events throughout North America.
Over the years, Snyder also has served as a color commentator on OLN, ESPN, Rogers Sportsnet TSN or CBC as those networks broadcasted rodeo and bull riding events. He also appears on broadcasts that cover the renowned Calgary Stampede, which is scheduled for July 3-12 in Calgary and will feature high-profile PBR riders.
In an interview with www.pbrnow.com, Snyder, an Alberta native who lives near Calgary, talked about his career and the challenges of producing bull riding shows in Canada. He also talked about Canada’s runner-up finish in the PBR’s World Cup in Chihuahua, Mexico last summer.
Q: Western Canada is well-known for being great bronc riding country; does that present a challenge to bull riding shows?
A: Bull riding is not second to bronc riding. Rodeo is rodeo and bull riding is bull riding, and we get pretty good crowds at some of our events, but we don’t have the amount of people that it takes for enough support. We’ve got less than 3 million people in Alberta, and there’s between 750 and 1,000 western-related events, and so when you take high school and college rodeo, amateur and pro bull riding and chuck wagon racing, we’re all pulling from the same people, and there’s only so much money that people have to spend, and that’s the biggest thing that holds us back. Then, you have the Calgary Stampede, which is the biggest rodeo in the world and has been here 100 years, but bull riding is a relatively new sport and it just takes a long time to build an audience.
Q: I’ve heard it said that the great bulls are in Texas and Oklahoma and the great broncs are in your part of North America. Is that a fair statement?
A: We’ve got some really good bulls coming along, and there’s some guys who are doing some really great breeding programs. When you look at why we have great bucking horses in Alberta, it’s because they’ve had great breeding programs such as Reg Kesler’s program that’s 60 years old, and you have the Calgary Stampede program that was started in the 1960s. So, it takes 30 or 40 years to build those programs. With our bulls, we now have some good breeding programs going on. Our breeding programs are growing, but it’s going to take time.
Q: But are you seeing the bulls getting better in Canada?
A: When we do a PBR event, we’ll take the cream of the crop from five, six of seven stock contractors. Our pen of bulls are awesome and getting better every year, and we’re just getting more of them. We’ve had some really rank bulls come out of here, such as I’m A Gangster, that was sold to Tom Teague and he’s always in the short round at the Built Ford Tough Series events. But it just goes back to numbers. In the U.S. you have hundreds and hundreds of rodeos and bull riding events, which means that you have a lot of stock contractors to support them. But here, all of our events are centralized for the most part-there’s hardly any events north of Edmonton and hardly any events south of Calgary. They’re within 200 miles. In the U.S., you have guys who come from both the Eastern and Western States and they have piles or rodeos. But our rodeos are pretty much centralized right here in Alberta. We’ve got a few guys from Manitoba, from Saskatchewan and British Columbia, but there’s nobody who competes from the East. In the U.S., you have numbers and hundreds of guys raising bulls, and here, we don’t have the population and enough events to support 100 guys. We have about 10 or 15 stock contractors and that’s about as deep as you’re going to get.
Q: You were the first cowboy with a Canadian residence to win a world title in 1983. What type of impact that did that have?
A: It’s like (1970s world saddle bronc riding champion) Mel Hyland told me, you’re never a former world champion, you’re always a world champion. My wife and I have used my world championship and branded my name and used it. Today, I do a lot of television work and I produce our Cody Snyder’s Bull Bustin’ events. Rodeo is a tough sport to make a living, and a guys can easily disappear once they are done. But I’ve been very fortunate to stay involved. I realize that it takes effort and nobody really hands you anything.
Q: You did keep your name out there by getting involved with TV and event production. What are your thoughts on that?
A: After you have fulfilled your dreams that you had when you were a kid of going to all of the great places such as Texas and riding bulls professionally, you realize that you are 30 years old and you ask yourself, “What am I going to do?” For me, it was perfect time to make changes because I had hurt my wrist riding bulls and the PBR was just starting. I produced the first ever bull riding event in Canada in 1993 in Calgary before the PBR Cup events really even existed. The PBR didn’t even have its first World Finals until 1994. We produced our first bull riding in the spring of 1993, and that was the start. And 16 years later, we’re still producing events.
Q: How much of a difference do you feel that PBR Canada is making?
A: It’s doing pretty good. What helps is working with Dave Cordovano (SVP of International Business) at the PBR headquarters whose knowledge is second to none. He’s produced every facet of the events. He understands how to sell tickets, how to sell sponsorships and produce events. So, he has a well-rounded mindset to help us. But again, our challenge is we don’t have a lot of people here and there’s too many like events pulling from the same pot.
Q: I’ve noticed that you have riders coming from the U.S. to ride in the Canadian events. Is that a trend?
A: Riders are coming because we have more money added. At many of the Enterprise Tour events (in the U.S.), guys are winning $3,000 or $4,000, but they are coming here and winning $7,000 or $8,000. They come up for a one-day event and they are going to get on good bulls every time. We have good bulls and good events and they like coming.
Q. Canada came very close to winning the PBR’s World Cup title last summer. What was that like?
A: That’s two years in a row that we’ve been runner up. It’s our own fault for not winning. All we had to do is ride one more bull and we just didn’t get it done.
Q: Does finishing runner-up two years in a row help advance bull riding in Canada?
A: First off, it makes me sick. I’ve never had anything bother me that bad. We went there as a team and to win a World Cup would be one of the biggest things that will ever happen for bull riding in Canada. We beat the U.S. when the World Cup was in Australia (in 2007) and we beat the Brazilians when the World Cup was in Mexico (in 2008). Now, we just have to beat the Mexicans, the Americans and the Brazilians in one place at the same time. But when we go to Brazil this summer, we’ve just got to out-ride them.
Q: Aaron Roy is a great rider from Canada. What do you think of his riding?
A: He’s the most consistent guy that we have in Canada. He won the PBR’s Canadian title last year. He’s just a guy who just doesn’t get bucked off up here.
Q: What about Vince Northrop?
A: He rides as good as anybody. He just has to think and know that he can beat them. If you can get Vince to thinking right, he’s very tough. When we went to Mexico, for example, you couldn’t have bucked him off of Godzilla. He rode all four bulls and never came close to getting bucked off. When Vince feels confident, feels great and he feels that he belongs, he can ride anything.
Q: With all of your years of being in the business, of being a world champion and heavily involved in TV and bull riding production, what do you feel like you now bring to the table?
A: When I was around rodeo, I’d always pay attention. I’d be at a winter rodeo such as Fort Worth for 10 days (and competing only two or three days), but I’d go to the rodeo every day while the other guys would lay around the room, and I learned a lot by seeing what was taking place. I remember when the Texas stock contractor Mack Altizer first came out with playing rock music during his rodeo performances and he was the first guy to do that. I remember going to one of his small rodeos in Texas and hearing the music blaring and saying to myself that it was really cool. Then I’d see pyrotechnics, and when we did our first bull riding in 1993, we were the first bull riding to use pyro. So, I saw things like that and brought them with me. I also sat on the CPRA (Canadian Professional Rodeo Association) board of directors and got an inside look at a lot of things. But, with me, if there’s something that I don’t know, I will find somebody who does know. You’re only as good as the people around you. When you have good people around you and you pull them all together, then you can have some pretty darn good events.
Q: You’ve closely watched the PBR since its beginning days. What has the association done for bull riding?
A: It’s put the money in the bull riders’ pockets. People come to rodeos to watch bull riding. If you take bull riding out of the equation, your crowds are going to go down. I was around pro rodeo in the mid-1980s when the PRCA had the Winston Pro Rodeo Tour and saw how good it could be if when you had the best riders and you put on great events and you had something to sell. As bull riders, we all thought that we should be paid more. It goes back to longevity. If you’re a bull rider, you’re life could be six or eight years, but if you are a bronc rider, then you make a living for 15 or 20 years. So, we need to get paid more, especially when we are selling the tickets. So, that’s what the PBR did. It’s made guys rich. Look at Justin McBride (who has more than $5 million in PBR earnings); he got to quit before an injury made him quit. And look at Adriano Moraes. He got to quit on his own terms. So, when you quit on your own terms, that means that you have enough money that you can actually own something and buy something. But most of the time, when you’re done rodeoing, you had better have a job the day after you retire, because you are going to have to start building a life. But the PBR is helping guys make a great living and they have something when they are done.
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