VIDEO COURTESY OF RESISTOL
Cole Reiner is a three-time National Finals Rodeo bareback rider from Wyoming
who grew up on a small ranch near Buffalo, Wyoming on the back of a horse. His passion has always been roughstock but he was a teenage before he talked his dad into letting him ride saddle broncs. Little did he know things would go a different direction for Reiner.
“We actually had a riggin and not a saddle. So I talked him into saddle bronc riding and we had a riggin so I ended up getting on my first bareback horse the day after I decided I wanted to do it,” Reiner said.
Rodeo started laid back and fun for Reiner whose other focus at the time was wrestling. Rodeo was a summer sport that he could do with his family. Fast forward to college and Reiner got a scholarship to go to school in Sheridan, Wyoming.
“I progressed leaps and bounds through the college rodeo scene and there’s a lot of guys that are ready to go rodeo at 18, 19 and the truth is I was not. I was kind of late, well slower in the game… and really took time to progress and fine tune what I had,” he said.
Reiner’s first paycheck of his professional career came in Bismarck, North Dakota. From there he went on to his rookie year in 2020 and moved to Weatherford, Texas where he took on the Texas Circuit. His goals that year were to make the National Finals Rodeo and win Resistol Rookie of the Year. Reiner accomplished both of those things.
“There’s no secrets about how you got to the spot you’re in, everybody knows what you’ve done and hard work is how you got there,” Reiner said.
As his perspective and goals change each year, for 2023, Reiner’s goal is a World Championship.
“It’s something that I was so close to last year… 2023 has started off pretty good and so we’re going to go from there,” he said.