Dave Appleton grew up with racehorses in Australia thinking he wanted to be a jockey. When he became too tall, he fell into rodeo.
“A bunch of guys started going to rodeos on the weekends, I’d kind of tag along and just sort of fell into it. I’m the last one you could really say I grew up wanting to be a rodeo cowboy, I really didn’t,” Appleton said.
From there, he started figuring out the sport of rodeo. He started with bareback riding and saddle bronc, winning a bareback coemption at 16-years old and it took off from there.
In Australia, rodeo is huge but the rodeo platform in America is different, drawing cowboys over to compete at a higher level. In 1980, Appleton joined the long list of Australian cowboys that came to the states in hopes of winning that coveted Gold Buckle.
“I was a 20 year old kid on a grand adventure,” Appleton said.
That grand adventure would consist of chasing rodeos, having fun and ultimately end with a World Championship in 1988.