Fannie Sperry Steele

[3][4][5] The only woman rider of the time to ride her entire career without tying her stirrups under the horse’s belly (a practice rodeo judges allowed for women only), Sperry Steele inherited her love of horses, especially pintos, from her mother.

She won several awards for her riding in professional rodeos during her lifetime, including Women's Bucking Horse Champion of Montana in 1904 at the age of 17, and Lady Bucking Horse Champion of the World of the first Calgary Stampede rodeo in 1912,[6] where hundreds of cowboys from Western Canada, the United States and Mexico competed for thousands of dollars in prizes.

In the Calgary Stampede, Sperry Steele had ridden the horse Red Wing, a wild bronc who had trampled fellow rider Joe LaMar to death only days earlier.

[3] Fannie and Bill became stock contractors near Helena, providing horses and bulls for rodeos all over the West.

She did not completely retire from riding until 1974, at the age of 87, when she entered a rest home in Helena, Montana.