06/14/2026
They called him the black tornado. And for good reason.
Born in 1916 on a ranch in the Porcupine Hills of Alberta, Canada, Midnight started life as a simple cow horse. Black as coal, powerfully built — 1,300 pounds of Thoroughbred, Percheron and Morgan blood. His owner Jim McNab tried for years to make him a working ranch horse. Midnight had other plans.
By 1920 McNab gave up trying to tame him and pointed him toward rodeo instead. What happened next became the stuff of legend.
In 1924 at the Calgary Stampede he was crowned champion bucking horse of all of Western Canada. From that day forward the greatest cowboys in the world lined up for their chance to conquer him — and one by one the black tornado sent them all flying into the dirt.
He traveled from Calgary to Cheyenne to Pendleton to Madison Square Garden in New York City. Crowds packed every arena just to watch him buck. His name appeared at the top of rodeo posters before any cowboy's name. In over 500 attempts across his entire career only a handful of riders ever stayed on him. Most were on the ground in two or three seconds flat.
The great Pete Knight — one of the finest saddle bronc riders who ever lived — drew Midnight in Montreal in 1926. He made it to the ninth second. Midnight spun hard right and launched him into the air. Even the best wasn't good enough.
When Midnight retired in 1933 he had beaten nearly every cowboy who ever tried him. He passed away on November 5, 1936 and was buried on the ranch. A senator wrote his epitaph —
"Underneath this sod lies a great bucking hoss. There never lived a cowboy he couldn't toss."
In 1979 he became one of the first animals ever inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. A black horse from the Canadian plains who became the greatest bucking horse in rodeo history.
