✝️ LITTLE SMART LEO aka “BIG TIME” ~ (2003-2020)

✝️ LITTLE SMART LEO aka “Big Time”

(2003-2020)

2018 & 2019 PRCA Tie-Down Horse of the Year

Owned and ridden by PRCA Champion Tie-Down Roper, Tyler Milligan

“Thanks to horsepower from Big Time, Milligan made his Wrangler National Finals Rodeo debut in 2019. He finished eighth in the PRCA | RAM World Standings with $196,884. He won Round 7 and split Round 8 with a pair of 7.5-second runs and earned $99,410 at the NFR.” (Courtesy of the PRCA)

Tyler Milligan’s two-time Horse of Year, Big Time, passes away

PRCA Press Release, November 2, 2020 by Tracey Renk, PRCA Media Coordinator

Tie-down roper Tyler Milligan’s two-time horse of the year, Little Smart Leo “Big Time,” passed away Oct. 30. He was 17.

“He was fine when we fed him (Friday), and he just coliced in the middle of the night,” Milligan said. “We came back down for breakfast time and he was dead. It dang-sure sucks. I will probably never have one like him again. It’s not so much not being able to ride him, he was more of a pet than a horse in the five years I owned him. Then, pretty much everything I have ever won has pretty much been on him.”

Big Time won the PRCA Horse of the Year award in 2018 and 2019.

Milligan lives in Stephenville, Texas. He buried Big Time in Aubrey, Texas, Oct. 31, at fellow tie-down roper Timber Moore’s place.

Thanks to horsepower from Big Time, Milligan made his Wrangler National Finals Rodeo debut in 2019. He finished eighth in the PRCA | RAM World Standings with $196,884. He won Round 7 and split Round 8 with a pair of 7.5-second runs and earned $99,410 at the NFR.

“Big Time just gave you everything he had every time,” Milligan said. “He wasn’t the most gifted horse as far as athletic ability and talent, but he was the same thing every time. You always knew what you were going to get with him.”

Milligan qualified for the 2020 Wrangler NFR at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, Dec. 3-12 and is trying to sort out his horse situation.

“It’s kind of up in the air,” said Milligan, 23. “I have a couple of horses and I’m not sure which one I’m going to ride quite yet.”

The horses Milligan is considering are KG, 18, and Hot Shot, 13.

“I have had KG the longest and I have ridden him more,” Milligan said. “I’ve only had Hot Shot for about four months. I really wasn’t even riding KG right now. He’s older and I was letting him have time off, and now I have to get him back going. Hot Shot is ready go. I have been riding him quite a bit.”

MEDIA CREDITS: