Benny Binion and the National Finals Rodeo

I competed in the very first National Finals Rodeo in 1959 in Dallas. Chuck Connors, star of The Rifleman TV show, was the celebrity star that year. After its run in Dallas, the NFR was moved to Los Angeles (1962-64) and then to Oklahoma City, where it stayed for the next 20 years. It probably still would be held in Oklahoma if it hadn't been for an incident involving Benny Binion, founder of the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, and a close friend of mine.

For years, Benny had been entering a stagecoach in the rodeo parade at the NFR. The coach had the logo of the Horseshoe Casino painted on both sides and was hooked up to a perfectly matched team of horses. It cost Benny around $15,000 or so to transport his four matched teams of horses and the coach from Montana to Oklahoma, but in 1983 or so, the officials wouldn't let him enter it in the rodeo parade. I don't know exactly why, but I think it might've been because some of those Oklahoma Baptists didn't want anything that advertised gambling showing up in the parade.

Benny got so hot that he promised everybody that he would pay their entry fees if they'd hold the rodeo in Las Vegas. As it turned out, that was a winning proposition, because the NFR has been a huge success in Vegas ever since it moved there in 1985, with prizes bigger than a barn - a lot bigger than they ever were in Oklahoma City.

The world of rodeos and horses, and the whole Western entertainment scene, opened the door to fame and fortune for lots of cowboys. I knew many of them personally, and met a whole lot of others during my heyday on the rodeo circuit - men such as Ben Johnson, Gene Autry, and Slim Pickens. Johnson got into the movies by accident. He was just a young cowboy working the rodeo circuit when he got his big break. Ben and I used to make some rodeos together, and one winter we went to Newhall, California, to practice our roping before the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show started. The weather was good there and you could practice your roping and train your horses. Ben had been hired to wrangle the horses for a movie that John Ford was directing in Newhall, California, which was the setting for lots of the old cowboy movies.

The female star of this Western movie was riding in a buggy when the horses ran away with her carriage, just like you see in lots of the old cowboy films. When Ben saw what had happened, he jumped on a horse real quick, raced after the buggy, stopped it, and saved the lady just like it was a stunt. Ford saw the whole thing.

"I'll never make another movie without Ben Johnson in it," he told everybody standing around him. Ben and I stayed in Newhall for about a month practicing roping and getting our horses in shape, and then went on down to Fort Worth for the Fat Stock Show. From there, we went to Phoenix in March.

Ben later went on to star in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and other films, and won an Academy Award for his role in The Last Picture Show. Years later, Benny Binion, Ben Johnson, and I were eating dinner together at the Horseshoe, and Benny said to me, "You know what Ben's worth now? Over $600 million!" It seems that when he started making a big salary in the movies, Ben started buying up land around Malibu, California, and made a fortune on it.

I wish that the National Finals had been going on when I was in my prime. It's such a big event for the cowboys because they can win $60,000 to $100,000 at it - you couldn't make nearly that much money when I was rodeoing. Of course, expenses are a lot higher these days. If you can find one, a good roping horse costs $50,000, and a good car and trailer run another $50,000 or more. A cowboy who comes in 10th at the NFR probably won't even make his expenses for the year. That's one reason why I think we might have done better in the old days, because if you won $15,000 to $20,000 a year, you were doing real well.

I met lots of other cowboy celebrities and movie stars in the old days, including Willie Nelson, Edward G. Robinson, and Gene Autry. But I'll save those stories for another day.

Editor's note: Cowboy Wolford is the author of Cowboys, Gamblers & Hustlers, where you will find many other gambling and cowboy tales from the old days. Visit www.pokerbooks.com for more details.