Rodeo Champ Was The Real King Of The Cowboys

The long reign of the real King of the Cowboys came to a sudden and tragic end on Oct. 20, 1947, when “Wild Horse Bob” Crosby died in a one-car crash near his New Mexico ranch.

The long reign of the real King of the Cowboys came to a sudden and tragic end on Oct. 20, 1947, when “Wild Horse Bob” Crosby died in a one-car crash near his New Mexico ranch.

Robert Anderson Crosby might never have been born had his father not played his cards right. The Texas Ranger eliminated his rival for the attentions of an Austin schoolteacher in a winner-takes-all hand of draw poker.

The lawman turned to ranching and moved to Midland, where Bob was born in 1897. He rode his first horse at the tender age of three, when his father boosted him onto the saddle and gave him the choice to “stay put or fall off.” The little boy stayed put.

An early chapter in the Crosby legend was written the day Bob, who could still count his years on his fingers, and older brother Harold roped 200 steers for a tick inspector. At 13 he entered his first rodeo and embarrassed 11 grown men by taking top honors in steer roping.

Not long after that a visiting celebrity told the teenager he was more than ready for the rodeo big time. Bob may have doubted the sincerity of Will Rogers’ encouraging words or possibly felt it was time to put aside childish things. Wedding bells were right around the corner, and his father would need a full-time hand on the family’s new cattle spread in New Mexico.

When bad weather and worse beef prices pushed the Crosbys to the brink of foreclosure in 1920, their banker came up with an ingenious way for them to make the mortgage payment. He suggested that young Bob test his storied talent at the annual rodeo in Yankee Stadium and advanced him $250 for traveling expenses.

Under the circumstances, the nervous novice could hardly say no. He returned with $1,250 in prize money, cash compensation for two blue ribbons, and a dream-come-true career. To prove the windfall was not beginner’s luck, he made the long trip back to New York the very next month and collected $1,860 in winnings at Madison Square Garden.

By 1928 Crosby had earned enough on his rodeo rounds to pay off the mortgage on the family ranch. That was also the year he was given permanent custody of the Roosevelt Trophy, the annual honor bestowed on the cowboy scoring the most points at Pendleton and Cheyenne, after winning the coveted award for an unprecedented third time.

Crosby was a Jekyll and Hyde with spurs. Outside the arena he was a perfect gentleman who never gambled, drank hard liquor, smoked or chewed tobacco or uttered a four-letter word stronger than “foot.” But inside the arena he was “Wild Horse Bob,” a gladiator on horseback who would have been right at home in the Roman Coliseum.

Yet even those critics that objected to his hellbent-for-leather tactics never questioned his extraordinary courage. Crosby proved in 1930 that he was not only the best all-around rodeo performer but the toughest as well.

In January a horse fell on him at Phoenix pulling a knee clean out of the socket. A month later at Tucson, a steer gored him in the thigh. With blood gushing out both sides of the skewered leg, he limped to his camp wagon and filled the gaping wound with coal oil. He saddled up the following day and rode to victory.

While practicing his steer-wrestling technique in April, Crosby caught a hoof in the face. A cowhand, who rushed to his aid, fainted at the gruesome sight of a dangling eyeball. Seventeen stitches in the eyelid and four more in the eyeball repaired the damage, but he had to endure two months of inactivity waiting for his vision to clear.

Four days after the doctors okayed Crosby for competition, he broke his leg at Prescott, Arizona. It was the fifth fracture for the accident-prone limb, and this time it developed gangrene.

Crosby went to the Mayo Clinic for treatment, where world-renown specialists advised amputation. But the pig-headed patient changed his mind on the operating table and startled the surgical team with the gruff announcement that he was going home.

Back at his 50,000-acre ranch outside Roswell, Crosby asked his brother to call “the sorriest doctor you know.” Harold grinned, “I know just the man. He hasn’t had a case in two years.”

The unpopular physician cut open the infected leg on the kitchen table, and “Wild Horse Bob” helped him scrape the bone with his trusty pocketknife. The home remedy must have done the trick because by fall the cowboy king again reigned supreme on the rodeo circuit.

Though 50 years old and forced by his insurance company to give up bulldogging and bronc riding, Crosby showed no sign of slowing down much less retiring. “I was born on a horse, and I want to die on a horse,” the ageless wonder said in 1946 interview.

“Wild Horse Bob” Crosby died with his boots on alright, but he was holding a steering wheel instead of the reins. In the end, the highway was more hazardous to his health than the rodeo arena.

(Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at haile@pdq.net or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549. And come on by www.twith.com for a visit!)