Bill Smith

Bill Smith
born June 28, 1941

"I love horses. I wouldn't want to be on this earth without horses. They're my life," said Bill Smith.

"I've seen some people I didn't like, and there's a lot of people that didn't like me. But I've never seen a horse I didn't like. And most horses, after they get to know me, they like me too," he said.

Bill Smith, or "Cody Bill Smith," as he was known on the rodeo circuit, grew up around horses and became a three-time world champion riding them. For a quarter-century, he has made a living in Thermopolis training and selling them through his nationally acclaimed WYO Quarter Horse operation.

Born and raised near Red Lodge, in the mining community of Bear Creek, Smith moved to Cody in 1958, before his senior year in high school.

"The first time I was ever in Cody was when we moved here," he recalled.

Smith said he was a "little scared" moving to the big city of Cody, after going to school in Bear Creek, where for the first eight years, "it was me and one other girl with the same teacher who taught every subject."

"It all seemed awful big to me. I was pretty much of a little hick," he said.

But at the Cody Nite Rodeo his senior year, Smith began his rise as a saddle bronc rider.

"It's as great a life as you can imagine for a young guy that's able to win enough money to live on," he said.

Smith was a world champion saddle bronc rider in 1969, 1971 and 1973, but was on the road 300 days each year.

"The rodeo business is tough on people," he said, adding that the time away from home led to a divorce from his first wife. "It takes a lot of sacrifices, and it's not for everybody."

"I've done some clinics and bronc riding schools, and the most important thing I've taught people is, 'This isn't for you.'" he said.

"If it was easy, everybody would do it. It's a fairy tale lifestyle, but it's tough to try to be the best in the world at what you do, even if you're shooting marbles. To make a living at it, you had to be in the top four or five," he said.

"It's still basically the same," Smith said. "The horses don't change."

But Cody has changed over the last half-century, he said.

"It's getting more Jackson Hole-ish, just growing bigger and busier. Everything is getting more metropolitan, and it's losing that local feeling. So many new people have moved in," he said.

"But it is what it is. Progress goes on, and you have to deal with it the way it is," he said.

"I'm not one to give anybody advice. I was lucky to get out of here alive myself," he joked. "But the advice I give every young kid is that whatever you do, keep your word. Do that and be honest and work hard."

Then he recalled his own time as a teenager, and figured that advice to young people is generally lost until they've found the same wisdom through their own mistakes.

"They're not going to listen to you anyway," he said.