Champion saddle bronc horse to make final appearance in Strathmore

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The legendary saddle bronc horse, Get Smart, will be making his last appearance at the Strathmore Stampede this year, as he is set to retire at the conclusion of this rodeo season.

Bronk Stott, with the Strathmore Stampede rodeo committee, said Get Smart boasts an impressive record over his 15-year run, including titles such as five-time Canadian saddle bronc champion, two-time saddle bronc National Finals Rodeo (NFR) champion, and one-time saddle bronc world champion.

Get Smart was also awarded as the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PCRA) Horse of the Year in 2019.

Stott said as far as career highlights go, it really doesn’t get better than literally being the world champion.

“Winning the world championship is the biggest thing you can do, so that would have been the biggest thing (in his career) and being a five-time Canadian champion is more than any other horse,” said Stott. 

Get Smart was sired by another bucking horse, Wyatt Earp, which Stott explained was a two-time Saddle Bronc Horse of the Year winner.

The sire, Wyatt Earp, was originally thought to be too small to be a bucking animal, weighing in at only 1,100 pounds. The same was initially also thought of Get Smart. 

Naturally, once the horse was started bucking at age five, he had other ideas.

Now at 20-years-old, the team behind Get Smart has decided to retire him before anything potentially catastrophic happens to the horse.

“They just want to retire him while he’s still not crippled and where he’s still competitive … they’re going to retire him at the NFR in Las Vegas this year,” said Stott. “This is the last time he will be in Strathmore. He’s going to three rodeos in August, then he will go into the Canadian Finals in November in Red Deer.”

Stott added it’s an emotional time for Get Smart to be headed into retirement, but that for the rest of his life it will be a quiet reprieve from being the star of the show.

“He’s a gelding so he can’t breed. He will just be babysitting weanlings and colts. He will be turned into the grandpa of the ranch,” said Stott. “It’s pretty emotional for him to be retiring. There’s not many of them, they are few and far in between. He’s probably, in my opinion, the greatest horse Canada has ever produced.”

According to Stott, one of the horses poised to try to take Get Smart’s place on the podium post retirement is Grated Coconut — a horse, coincidentally, that was bred from the same sire. 

Get Smart will, for the last time, be participating in each of the respective saddle bronc events hosted during the Strathmore Stampede.