Outside the Arena with...
Cindy Rosser By Georgia Akers
This is my second article on girl power in western sports. If there was rodeo royalty, one of the names that would be mentioned is the Rosser family. Cotton Rosser was a contestant and later stock contractor. He is in the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. His daughter, Cindy, has followed in her dad’s bootsteps and has made a name for herself as a stock contractor but also of a breeder of some of the best bulls in the business. The one that everyone knows if you follow this sport is a bull named Bushwacker. I think that says it all. Trying to catch up with Cindy took a little doing in that she is always on the road to bring livestock to a variety of rodeos. She was gracious and patient with my questions. I learned from her things I did not know about western sports such as gymkhanas!
Tell us about yourself My dad was Cotton Rosser a rodeo contestant who competed in all western sports. My mother, Linda, was a rodeo queen and showed horses. They met at the Cow Palace, National Intercollegiate Rodeo Finals. Later, my dad injured himself and could no longer compete. He bought the Flying U Rodeo in 1956. Originally he bought animals for the rodeo but in the late 1960’s started breeding his own. I have three brothers, Lee, Brian and Reno, and one sister, Katherine. Reno is the only one that is involved in the business. We worked cattle, horses and bulls. That’s all I knew. I was born into rodeo, so that was my passion. I started running barrels in 4H shows, gymkhanas on a quarter pony. A gymkhanas were riding clubs where there would be games on horseback for kids. My dad paid $50 for a bucking horse that I broke and turned him into a barrel horse. He turned out to be a good one and I made the circuit finals on him in 1969. I was 14 years of age. I rode every horse on the ranch always looking to find that special barrel horse. I always wanted to make the NFR, but work always seemed to get in the way. I did win the WPRA California Circuit Championship in 1982. I carried the American Flag for many years at western sports events. I trained horses to jump thru a paper horse shoe, Liberty Bell, tee pee, cowboy boot, birthday cake and once we built a space ship to use at the NFR. I designed the openings and trained flag girls for the first ten years of the NFR in Vegas. It was a lot of work but I enjoyed entertaining the spectators.
Humps-Horns.com · 9 · January 2021
