Cowgirl Hall of Famer Faye Blackstone, 96

Faye Blackstone, a rodeo trick rider who was elected to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and was best known for her saddle-dangling signature move, the reverse fender drag, died Aug. 30 at a hospital in Bradenton, Fla.

She was 96 and had complications from cancer, said her great-niece Deanna Blackstone.

Blackstone, who also helped launch the career of country singer Reba McEntire, was 3 when she began riding horses on her family's Nebraska ranch. She taught herself how to do tricks while riding her horse to school.

She and her late husband, Vic, a bowlegged bronc rider from Texas, married in 1937. They performed on the rodeo circuit during the 1940s and '50s. During that time, she also rode in a traveling show with Gene Autry and entertained crowds in New York's Madison Square Garden and as far as Havana with her gymnastic feats.

She could do headstands while her quarter horse galloped at full stride. She could drop down from the saddle, let her boots kick the arena dust and spin to the horse's other side.

Diana Vela, the associate executive director of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, said Blackstone is credited with inventing three maneuvers: the flyaway, the ballerina and the reverse fender drag. For the latter, Blackstone hung on to the lower left side of the saddle with her right leg and arm, extending her left leg and arm while her head bobbed by the horse's haunches.

With the "horse going full speed," Vela said, such a move required spectacular athleticism and a "great deal of horsemanship." Blackstone said her innovations evolved because she was often among the last trick riders to perform at rodeos.

"You didn't want to duplicate what they did," she said in 1989. "You wanted to do something special."

Fayetta June Hudson was born in Diller, Neb. When she was 8, she watched as a female rider handled a bronco as the animal went berserk.

"The horse jumped over the fence and behind the grandstand," Blackstone said in 1995. "She was riding that stuff with the greatest of ease. I thought, 'Boy, I want to do that.' "

During the 1950s, the Blackstones settled outside Parrish, Fla. There, they arranged for the daughter of some rodeo friends to get a spot performing at a local country fair in 1978. The young singer was Reba McEntire. "That was my first big fair by myself," McEntire said in 2003. "It was huge to me."

Faye Blackstone performed in rodeos into the 1960s. She was elected to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1982, and her husband was elected to the Rodeo Hall of Fame the same year. He died in 1987. Blackstone has no immediate survivors.