The introduction alone would’ve made a lesser man blush.
“He’s 6-2, tall, dark, handsome, good-lookin’, rich, and yes, girls, he is single,” La Fiesta de los Vaqueros Tucson Rodeo announcer Wayne Brooks said on Saturday afternoon about Cody Kiser.
This is a guy who rides horses and served as Bradley Cooper’s stuntman in “American Sniper.”
There’s winning go-rounds and there’s just plain winning at life, and it seems like Kiser is doing a bit of both right now.
Fortune smiled on Kiser on Saturday afternoon at the Tucson Rodeo, and not just his draw with Beutler & Son’s Pebbles. Another rider was initially crowned the winner and took the victory lap around the arena, but Kiser was later deemed the day’s champion with an 82-point ride.
Then again, fortune has smiled often on Kiser, if you ask him.
This is a guy who dreamed as a little boy of being a movie stuntman and then found himself, years later, doing what he always dreamed. One day he got a phone call from a buddy who performed as a stuntman in Hollywood; they were looking for someone about Kiser’s build, who could ride and who could get to California.
“I’m just the luckiest guy around,” he said. “It was just dumb luck, to be thought of, to be picked, to be needed, all the things to fall in line, and all the way up until the week before, it was like, ‘Only if we need you.’”
If you’ve seen “American Sniper,” you know they needed him; in one of the movie’s first scenes (SPOILER ALERT), Cooper’s Chris Kyle competes in a rodeo, and Kiser served as stuntman. He beams in his denim-on-denim as he recalls being approached by Cooper and Clint Eastwood, offering handshakes and introductions. He calls it “one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,” before explaining how Cooper eagerly pulled him in the back to watch the video of his dailies.
“I get goose bumps just talking about it,” he said. “I would love to be able to do it again. When I was a kid, I told my parents, ‘I want to be a stuntman.’ I didn’t want to act. I wanted to crash cars and jump off buildings. I’ve always been a little wild.”
Flash-forward to his other childhood dream occupation: riding horses.
Like so many other cowboys, rodeoing is in Kiser’s blood, though it may have taken a little longer to get there. His father, P.D., took up the sport in his late-20s, far past the prime of most bareback riders.
Cody, though, took to the dirt and dust early, only graduating to riding horses after a few rounds with the bulls went south.
“They’re both animals, they both buck, and you’re trying to ride both for eight seconds, but really they’re apples and oranges,” Kiser said. “They’re both fruit, but they’re totally different.”
He sure took that orange named Pebbles for a ride on Saturday, the rodeo’s opening day. Pebbles shot out of the shoot and halted about six feet in, bucking twice wildly, on a day in which only four riders would hang on all eight seconds — including Tucson’s teen sensation Rio Lee — Kiser’s ride was deemed the top.
Just another day in the charmed life of a rodeo cowboy.
Of course, this comes just a short time after a rough wreck in San Angelo, Texas, which left Kiser aching and unsure if he’d compete in Tucson. Minutes after his triumph over Pebbles, though, Kiser was all smiles.
Was he hurting?
“Not right now, I’m feeling pretty good because I had a good ride,” he said.
