Event in which you compete: Tie-Down Roping
Hometown: Childress, TX, USA
Number of years riding: 16 years professionally
Career accomplishments to date:
- • 2008 World Champion Tie-Down Roper
- • 2008 WNFR Champion Tie-Down Roper
- • 1997 Texas All Around and Tie-Down Roping Champion
- • Two-Time Coors Fans’ Favorite Cowboy
How you got started in your event: My Father was the first calf roper to get off of his horse on the right. He was an NFR Qualifier in the 1960’s.
Favorite Ariat product: Full Quill Ostrich Square Toe Boots
Proudest career moment: Winning the World Championship in 2008 after years of trials and tribulations, including a stroke and experimental heart surgery at 32 years old.
Tell us about your first horse: Jim Dandy was a mean little black Shetland that taught all of the Smith kids how to ride. He would bite, kick, run away, and rub you off on the fence.
You ride because: Some of my best friends have been horses.
If you weren’t a professional rider, you would be a: Rancher striving to be the very best in that career.
Favorite mentor or idol growing up: My Dad, Clifton Smith, was my mentor and idol. Dad didn’t tell me how to live, he showed me.
Favorite place to travel: Calgary Stampede
Name one fun fact that people don’t know about you:I love to design houses and barns in my head. I should have been an architect.
Favorite way to unwind outside the barn: Spending time and playing with my two boys, Stone and Scout.
Good luck charm: I don’t believe in good luck charms. In fact, if I think something is supposed to be bad luck I will do it or wear it just to prove differently. I had a couple of fifty-dollar bills in my wallet when I won the World Championship in 2008, and I was wearing a yellow shirt when I broke the World record at the Texas Stampede in 1997.