When Cody Snyder says his sights are set on producing Canada’s first cross-country bull-riding tour, you’d better believe him.

Betting against the doggedly determined Snyder has never been a wise proposition.

Nineteen years ago, the iron-willed Snyder set his mind to winning a world bull-riding championship, and at age 20 and against the longest odds, the unheralded cowboy from Redcliff, Alta., realized his dream by winning the gold buckle at Oklahoma City.

David Lazarowych, Business Edge
Entrepreneur Cody Snyder is taking his bull-riding business by the horns and setting up a cross-country tour.

Ten years ago, when a wrist injury forced Snyder into premature retirement, he promptly embarked on a new career as a bull-riding promoter. Within three months, Cody Snyder’s BullBustin’, a bull riders-only event, burst out of the chute with its first show in Calgary.

Snyder’s annual bull-riding shows in Calgary and Edmonton, produced with his wife and business partner Rhonda Schlenker-Snyder, are still going strong, a testament to the cowboy’s grit and steely-eyed determination.

“I don’t sit on the fence and talk about it,” the fast-talking entrepreneur in Wrangler jeans pipes during a mid-morning interview at Ranchman’s nightclub. “Talk’s cheap.”

Rodeo cowboys who have spent the better part of their lives on the road chasing rank 2,000-pound blind dates can be tough to rope, especially one in the midst of setting the stage for a Calgary Stampede charity bull-riding event at Ranchman’s, the cowboys’ watering hole.

David Lazarowych photo, Business Edge
It takes true grit to be a bull-riding hero, but just try owning a business where your main assets are leathery cowboys and ornery critters.

But we managed to get the high-strung Snyder to sit still for 37 minutes. Which just might be some kind of a record.

1. What initially drew you to rodeo during your boyhood in Redcliff in the Medicine Hat area?
“My dad (Moe) rodeoed. I had a great-uncle who was a Canadian champion. My brother rode. My uncle rode. Dad had trophies that he won in the trophy cupboard there, ya know, and I remember lookin’ at those as a little kid and thinkin’ that that’s what I wanted to do.”

2. How did your parents influence your career?
“My parents never pushed me to do it, but they never held me back either. They gave me a free rein. When I was 14 years old, I went to 85 rodeos as an amateur in one summer.”

3. Who taught you to be a bull rider?
“The guy that I can say probably had as much to do with me gettin’ as good as I did was a guy by the name of Dale Rose. He was a professional bull rider who had a practice arena about two miles west of Redcliff. There wasn’t a lot of teaching. It was just a lot of practice. I come from the school of hard knocks. It was the old way. I came from the school of get on and hang on. I had my own riding style – hang on and don’t let go.”

4. What’s the most important lesson you learned from your years on the rodeo trail?
“I’ll get in there and do whatever it takes to make something work and that’s the way it was ridin’ bulls. You learned by trying your guts out and that’s how I am now. When we’re setting up an arena, I’ll jump in there and do whatever it takes to get the job done. If you show people around you that you’ll get in there and work as hard as them, then they’ll work for you.”

5. What character traits made you a world champion?
“I was just real stubborn. Ya know, I tried really hard and I was never intimidated. And I had a lot of confidence. I think probably the word ‘confidence’ is the biggest thing. I think that’s what a lot of Canadians lack in a lot of sports other than riding bulls and rodeo. I think we, in this country, don’t instill confidence in kids. You’ve got to have the ‘Texas George Bush’ attitude. When our Canadian kids go to the Olympics, they’ve got to be more confident than they are. You shouldn’t just go there to be there. Go there to win first. Don’t just go there and be happy you didn’t drown in the pool.”

6. Where did you get your positive attitude?
“I think I got that from my mom (Virginia), who tries really hard and works really hard. When I showed up at a rodeo, I tried to win first every time.”

7. You were never thrilled being a runner-up in anything, were you?
“I ended up second for the $50,000 (Calgary Stampede bull-riding jackpot) a couple of times, but that’s not a very good thrill. You always wanted to win that because that was the biggest payday in rodeo.”

8. What do you most admire about rodeo cowboys?
“The thing about bull riders and rodeo cowboys is that they’ve got a lot of try. Like any individual sport, you’ve got to step up to the plate and get it done. I never got a cheque in the mail one time when I didn’t show up and compete and do well when I got there.”

9. Who’s the cowboy you most admire?
“John Dodds. He was the five-time Canadian (bull-riding) champion. He beat cancer about three or four years ago and he had cancer bad. He told me: ‘This cancer, it ain’t like ridin’ bulls. There ain’t no second place. It’s either first place or nothin’.’ His attitude was like it was nothin’. A guy like him had the try and he’s just a good guy.”

10. Any regrets from your bull-riding career?
"Naw, I had a blast. I’ve seen everything, done everything, been everywhere. Been to Australia. Travelled everywhere in the U.S. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. The only thing I’d have changed is I wish I would’ve found out about my wrist injury sooner. That hurt my career for five years. I had a broken bone in my wrist for five years and didn’t know it. By the time we figured it out, it was kind of a mess. That was what ultimately ended my career. I’d be ridin’ a bull to be 90 points and after seven seconds (a qualified ride is eight seconds) my hand would pop open. Other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

11. If you had a son, would you let him grow up to be a bull rider?
“I wouldn’t stop him, but I wouldn’t want him to. It’s too dangerous. I think about what my mom went through sittin’ on the edge of her chair hoping the phone doesn’t ring.

"When you’re getting on 150 to 200 bulls a year, it’s really dangerous. It’s not whether you’ll get hurt, it’s how bad you’re going to get hurt. I feel very lucky. If you’ve got a 2,000-pound bull that steps on ya, nothin’s goin’ to save you.

"When it’s your time, it’s your time. In 1982, a bull stepped on me in Blackfoot, Idaho, and broke two ribs and punctured my lung. We had a rodeo the next day in Wainwright, Alta. Greg Schlosser and I were driving out of Blackfoot and five miles out of town I talked Greg into turning around and taking me to the hospital. The doctor said I wouldn’t have made it through the night. But it never, never fazed me at all. A month later in Calgary (Stampede), I rode Wilfred for 90 points. That’s my biggest thrill of the Stampede.”

12. How many bull-riding friends of yours have been killed in the sport?
“Ya know, I’ve never sat down and counted that. There was Lane Frost (inspiration for the movie Eight Seconds) and Glen Keeley and Jeff Crockett. God, too many.”

13. How’d you make the transition from bull rider to bull-riding promoter so rapidly?
“For an athlete, there’s a transition period there. Some guys are ready for it, I guess. I hadn’t even put a pen to paper and three months later I put on a bull-ridin’ show. I didn’t sit around thinking: ‘What will I do tomorrow?’ I’ve never been a talker. You get out there and get it done.”

14. What’s the key to staging a successful bull-riding show?
“Havin’ good people around you is really the key. This is sports entertainment. If you’ve got good bulls and good riders, it’s show time. But it has taken 10 years for us to get to a point where we’ve nailed it just right.

This spring in Calgary (at the Pengrowth Saddledome) was the best show we’ve ever had. My wife Rhonda has as much to do with this as me. She’s got the eye for things. She can see real first-class things that people are going to like. We’ve made money every time we’ve done an event. We want to go to four to six events next year and form a cross-Canada tour. But we won’t have too many. We want quality over quantity.”

15. Who’s making more money at your events, the bull riders or Cody Snyder?

“I don’t really want to get into that. Everything that I do is for the bull rider and I want to treat guys the way I always wanted to be treated myself. We have to make some money to make the thing operate, but you want the bull riders to be happy and to know that they came to a great event, and you want them to want to come back for more. We spend more money than anybody else in the business making sure there are good bulls.”

16. Why has the upstart Professional Bull Riders (PBR) association that performs at your shows been able to showcase most of the top bull riders in recent years and steal some of the thunder from the traditional pro rodeo associations and the Calgary Stampede?
“For the bull riders, it’s about money and it’s about having to go to 100 rodeos a year (on the pro rodeo tour). Guys just don’t want to get on that many bulls. It’s wear and tear on your body. Your body’s like a tire. Every turn on your body, a little more rubber gets worn off.

"There’s a reason bull ridin’s at the end of every rodeo. That’s because that’s what people come to see. If you’re the star of the show, you’ve got to get paid more. That’s why the PBR was formed. It started in 1992 with $250,000 (US prize money) and now it’s $7.5 million (US). Five years from now, there’s going to be a lot of millionaires ridin’ bulls, and that’s good to see.”

17. How different are the Calgary and Edmonton bull-riding markets?
“They’re totally different. Edmonton’s more of a blue-collar, working-class city and Calgary’s more of a corporate city and supports charitable things.”

18. Are you pleased with the support for your bull-riding events in Calgary and Edmonton?
“Our sponsorship increases all the time. Some of our sponsors like Wrangler have been with us for 10 years. But we’ve got to give them a bang for their buck.”

19. What’s your business philosophy?
“I’ll work hard and do whatever it takes to get the job done and get good people around me. When you’ve got good people, you need to let them do their job. Give them a long leash. I’ve never pretended that I know everything in this business and I know some guys in this business think they know everything and they try to do it all themselves. That doesn’t work very good.”

20. What do you see in your life’s crystal ball?
“You just want to stay healthy and be able to make some money and be able to retire some time and be able to look back and know that you had an impact on some people and changed their lives. I want people to look back and say that Cody Snyder put on great bull-ridin’ events. And I want the bull riders to be happy with what we produced. I’m real fortunate . . . everything I do I enjoy doin’ or I wouldn’t do it.”

IN PROFILE: Cody Snyder
* Born/raised/age: Medicine Hat, AB; Redcliff, AB; 39.
* Home: Okotoks.
* Chores: Bull-riding entrepreneur/ promoter, TV analyst for bull-riding events.
* Informal education: Bull pen (school of hard knocks).
* Formal education: Grade 11.
* Family: Wife Rhonda Schlenker-Snyder, daughters Jordyn and Reese.
* Business: Snyder owns and operates Cody Snyder's BullBustin' (www.bullbustin.com) with wife Rhonda, producing annual bull-rider-only shows in Calgary and Edmonton.
* Trails: Snyder burst into prominence in 1983 by winning the world bull-riding championship at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. He was the Canadian amateur rodeo champion at age 15 and made nine appearances in the Canadian Finals Rodeo, winning one Canadian title (1986). His best ride was a rare 95-point score in 1983.
* Accolades: Snyder won the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association's Cowboy of the Year Award in 1987 as voted on by his peers. He was inducted into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame earlier this year.
* Cowboy hero: John Dodds.
* Passions: Bull riding, golf, skiing.