Home, Home in the Saddle: He Isn’t Horsing Around : Rodeos: Dan Dailey has won all-around cowboy championship 16 times, saddle-bronc title 9 times. Looks like another winning year.
At the end of a bad day in the saddle, rodeo star Dan Dailey says, “What really keeps you going is winning.”
Although finishing no better than sixth that recent hot summer afternoon in Northhampton, Mass., Dailey had little time to worry. He jumped into his truck and began a 14-hour trek to Wilmington, Ohio, for another in a long season of rodeos.
Most days the 43-year-old Dailey finishes in the money. He has been the International Pro Rodeo Assn.’s World Champion All-Around Cowboy 16 times and won the IPRA’s world saddle bronc title nine times. He’s well on his way to repeating both titles this year.
Dailey has already outlasted the average rodeo cowboy, who retires before reaching his 40th birthday. “I don’t feel any different than when I was 25,” he says.
About his continued success in this physically challenging sport, Dailey says, “I feel blessed. I give all the credit to the Lord.” A deeply religious man, he prays before each event.
Of course, Dailey’s years in the saddle haven’t gone without injury. “I’ve broken both my legs,” he says. “In 1977, I broke my left leg bull riding. It took three screws and a plate to put it back together. Over the years, I’ve had cracked ribs, I cracked a vertebra and broke my wrist.”
Dailey used to compete in all six rodeo events: bareback riding, saddle-bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping, calf roping and bull riding. But he quit bull riding in 1989 and bareback riding in 1993.
But he’s a consistent performer in the other events, especially saddle-bronc riding. He’s the current world champion.
Dailey, who calls Edmond, Okla., home, travels 125,000 miles a year from rodeo to rodeo, often performing in a different state each day.
He made $86,000 in prize money in 1993, along with about $40,000 in endorsements.
“Sometimes I think they don’t make enough rodeos for me to get to,” he says.