April 4, 1961 -
IGRA# 2173 - 4173
First attended a gay rodeo in 1985
Inducted 2019
David Renier was born in Seattle Washington April 4, 1961. Shortly after that his family moved several times: to Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, and finally to California. After the death of his uncle and his parents' divorce, David and his mother moved to Bloomington, California to help his Aunt run their wild animal park. There, his family maintained the zoo as well as working with Hollywood movie and TV shows such as "The Beverly Hillbillies" and many other movies that included exotic animals.
David was active in 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA), where he showed beef and dairy cattle as well as sheep and swine. He also showed horses and competed in local junior high and high school rodeos, which were his passion.
He heard about the gay rodeo from a friend but was too young to enter, so he waited until he was 21. His first rodeo was in Los Angeles in 1985 and he entered the barrel racing event, where he finished in the top 10. That was the beginning of many more years of traveling the United States with his friends.
During his many years of rodeoing he had 4 main partners that helped him achieve his success: Sunny Rose Berger, Candy Pratt, Kirk Carter and Saul "Pepe" Lozada. He believes that without these people he's not sure he could have been as successful as he was in his events. Through the years David had a few great horses but 3 stand out to him: a sorrel gelding named Bisquit, a sorrel mare named Badger and finally the super star brown gelding The Easy Horse. Between these horses David won hundreds of buckles.
David also had much success in the straight horse show world winning Circuit Champion as well as Reserve World Champion with his horse Easy.
In 2011 he was featured in a docudrama called "Queens & Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo," which focused on one of David's strong competitors, Wade Earp, who is also in this Hall of Fame. The movie highlighted David's years of success, including his having won the World Gay Rodeo Finals (WGRF) "All-Around Cowboy" title the previous two years. Wade did work hard to win the 2011 WGRF title of "All-Around Cowboy", however, David came back to win the title again in 2012 and 2013. The movie's producer often referred to David as the Michael Jordan of gay rodeo.
David was the Senior Humane officer for the State of California which lead him into Law Enforcement where he served for 15 years. He eventually moved to San Diego, CA. and went into business for himself and started Thick Hair Enhancement, which is a hair replacement business that provides a service for women going through chemotherapy.
In 2015 he lost his partner Nolan Watters to suicide, after that David felt like he needed to carry on Nolan's name and started the Nolan Watters Foundation. This foundation has programs which help High School kids and our Military members suffering with depression.
In 2019 David married his long-time friend Jimmy Daurio and lives on their ranch in Colorado where his husband is the owner and trainer at Daurio Performance Horses. They travel the States showing horses and David has qualified for the 2019 AQHA World Championship with their Reining and Ranch Riding horses.