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turned a somersault on top of her. Marie was carried unconscious from the arena. The doctor at the first-aid station administered ammonia and whiskey and was going to send her to the hospital. She refused and continued with the rodeo, despite a head so swollen her hat didn’t fit. Then she rode in the relay race but remembered little about the race, only the ringing in her ears, occasional surges of pain, and swaying in the saddle. Later she did go to the hospital and discovered she had a broken jaw, which had to be wired shut.
    She would meet Wild Fire again, and the next time rode him to top money, even though she injured her knee coming out of the chute.

    â€œWell, it’s all in the game,” Marie wrote in her journal. “If you want to keep at it you got to take it as it comes. It’s a good life, lots of sport if you don’t weaken.”
    Marie went on to win the Women’s World Bronc Riding Championship at the Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1925 and the world championship title at Madison Square Garden in 1927 and 1931.

CHAPTER FOUR
The Ride Continues

“A woman is like a tea bag—you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”
    â€”E LEANOR R OOSEVELT
    A fter Fannie Sperry’s first successful bronc ride at age fourteen, she was hooked. She and her best friend, Christine Synness, egged each other on and convinced their parents to let them ride at another exhibition in Wolf Creek. Each girl took her own wild horse she had captured herself, but Fannie was horrified to see Christine’s brothers “hobble” or tie her stirrups together under the horse’s belly. This was a common practice to make it easier for women to stay in the saddle—once she put her feet in the stirrups, it was like being tied onto the horse. But that also meant she couldn’t get off the horse without help.
    Having learned to ride like a man, Fannie preferred riding “slick,” stirrups not hobbled, one rein and one hand free. “It [hobbling] is too dangerous! She [Christine] could get hung up,” she protested. Fannie later wrote, “Mine is the reputation of being the only woman rodeo rider who rode her entire career unhobbled. I confess it is a record I am proud of.”
    Besides, she explained, “I never have been able to consider it sporting to ride hobbled, for it isn’t giving the horse a fifty-fifty chance.”
    That day, Fannie rode “slick,” competing evenly with the men, and when the exhibition was over, she was declared the winner. The organizer, Dave Anson, passed his hat and gave Fannie $2.35 in “winnings.”
    Although her mother declared that Fannie was not to put on such a “risky and public display” again, there was no stopping the young cowgirl. When Anson approached her the next year for the Fourth of July rodeo, she did respect her mother’s wishes and turned him down for bronc riding, but she suggested he put on a pony-express race, like the ones Buffalo Bill Cody ran.
    He agreed. This show differed from Cody’s in that the racers rode thoroughbreds and the women had to change horses four times during the race, at times even changing their own saddles. Christine won that first race, and Anson invited them to sign up for the bucking events at the state fair.
    â€œWhy not?” Christine replied.
    Fannie’s mother gave her daughter a sharp look.
    â€œPlease, Ma,” Fannie pleaded. “I can’t quit riding. Besides, I’m the best. Everyone says so. I can’t quit now.” Her mother reluctantly agreed.
    In October 1903 the Montana State Fair in Helena added two fifteen-year-old girls to the roster of bucking-horse riders. Both did well and began receiving invitations to ride in other fairs, roundups, and stampedes, sponsored by the Capital Stock and Food Company of Helena.
    Some of the seasoned riders grumbled about women riding in men’s events, saying