Living on the Edge

Trick Rider Performs Daredevil Stunts for Movies, Rodeos

By Paige Callaway, Texan News Service

As her horse takes off galloping around the arena near Weatherford, the blonde-haired woman flings herself off the side of 1,500 pounds of horsepower and hangs by one leg. Her hair and hands drag in the dirt while her head is only inches from the horses’ thundering hooves that leave a dusty trail.

But the smile says it all. It lights up her face and those faces of the people watching her as this stuntwoman puts in just another day at “the office.”

Born and raised in Rockyford, Alberta, Canada, and now a resident of Montana, Niki Cammaert-Moran is a professional trick rider, stuntwoman and licensed pyrotechnician. Everything on her jam-packed resume requires guts and a bit of a wild streak.

She recently has been spending a lot of time in Texas practicing and performing in pro rodeos in Glen Rose and Houston. She also performed numerous times at some of the most prestigious rodeos in North America, including the Fort Worth Stock Show and Exposition, San Antonio, Austin, the National Finals in Las Vegas, Denver National Stock Show & Rodeo, the Canadian Finals and the legendary Calgary Stampede in Canada.

Cammaert-Moran, who is 25, began her trick-riding career when she was only 16 years old.

“I started because I had been going to the Calgary Stampede since I was a little girl and I remember every year watching the trick riding and I loved it,” she recalled.

She also worked with her dad, Jim Cammaert, and followed in his footsteps to become a licensed pyrotechnician. “I can do high level or basically the huge fireworks shows, I can do special effects in the movies, I can do anything that involves fireworks, pyrotechnics and special effects,” she said.

While working on special effects for movies, Cammaert-Moran witnessed the stunting required on sets. She was called to work on Shanghai Noon as Owen Wilson’s stunt double. “It was my big break, I guess you would say,” said Cammeart-Moran.

After her first stunt job, she worked on several other sets, including the movies Rat Race, Sins of Our Fathers, Gingersnaps, Honey I Shrunk the Kids and The Investigation. Cammaert-Moran also appeared in a 2001 Super Bowl Bud-Lite beer commercial in which she performed horse rearing, horse dragging and trick riding stunts

“I love to do the stunts, it’s just fun,” she said about the movie work. “Now that I live in Montana it’s a little harder to stay in the Alberta film industry. Not to say it can’t be done. I’d sure like to pursue that more.”

Stunting for a living wasn’t her plan, however. She got accepted into the kinesiology program at the University of Calgary. As the few months of summer dwindled down, she dreaded going to school.

“All I wanted to do was stunt work,” she said. “I just sat down with my Dad and was like, ‘what am I going to do?’ I knew I what I wanted to do but it just wasn’t what I was supposed to do.”

Meanwhile, Cammaert-Moran was a growing sensation in the trick-riding world and she was getting busier and busier. “I just decided I was going to make it work and I was going to make a career of it,” she said.

When fall came around, she didn’t start school. Instead, she started an adventure. “Tons of people said, ‘you’re crazy,’” Cammaert-Moran said with a chuckle. “But it worked out, thankfully.”

The foundation of her success started at home, Cammaert-Moran said. “My dad, he has helped me so much, he just always has my back,” she said. “And my mom, she is like my rock. She has been awesome.”

Cammaert-Moran’s husband, Shane Moran, a professional saddle bronc rider, also has helped her along the way. He accompanied her to California where she received training from another trick rider, Tad Griffith. “Shane sat on the fence and listened to everything Tad told me so when we went home he could remind me if I was having trouble with a trick. He would remind me, ‘you need to remember he told you to arch or do this.’”

The couple who work in close quarters think a lot of each other. “He influences everything, everyday,” said Cammaert-Moran.

Like the relationships with her family, she is also close to the creatures who carry her around the arena. “I would say that 95 percent of trick riding is your horse,” Cammaert-Moran said. “You just cannot to it with out a good horse.”

“I have my main horse, Rebel, and he is awesome,” she said of the 7-year-old palomino. “I have my old horse, Chance. He has been through a lot. He took a long time to train, he was so afraid of everything. But he did come around pretty good.”

Then there was Willie, a dun horse who was traveled around North America with Cammaert-Moran during six years of performing. He was “the best in the world,” she said. “Willie has got the same birthday as me. I just knew it was meant to be when I got him.”

She passed Willie down to a younger trick rider for an easy retirement until his passing last year.

Making a living by living on the edge keeps Cammaert-Moran busy and happy.

“Probably the highlight has been getting to live this life I dreamed of living and meeting the people I have got to meet,” she said with a smile. “I am just lucky.”

The Texan News Service is a project of the journalism program at Tarleton State University in Stephenville.