In this Feb 2, 1979 file photo, then Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping tries on a cowboy hat presented to him at a rodeo in Simonton, Texas.The Associated Press
Even 35 years later, Martha Josey isn't quite sure how to pronounce his name. "Dang?" she says haltingly, her Texas drawl lingering on the "ang."
"Dang She Pang?"
What she does know is that on Feb. 2, 1979, during a season when "I was probably one of the hottest barrel racers going," she rode her horse, Sonny Bit O'Both, over to the stands and placed a white hat on the head of a short Chinese man. He was Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China, and the resulting picture of him in a cowboy hat remains one an enduring image of goodwill between the two nations – or, as The Economist once called it, "one of history's most incongruous photo-ops."
Now, with a small group of U.S. rodeo entrepreneurs trying desperately to export their sport to China, she's hoping she can get a hat on Beijing's new top man. Earlier this month, she placed a Resistol Stetson and a Martha Josey Circle Y barrel-racing saddle (retail price: $2,500 [U.S.], "a good price") in a package marked for Xi Jinping.
She hopes the Chinese President will get it, wear the hat and have a change of heart when it comes to letting rodeo in to China.
It's an effort born in part of frustration. The past several years have seen several high-profile rodeos in China planned, booked and then cancelled at government behest at the last minute. The organizers of one of the failed events asked Ms. Josey to reprise her role as U.S. hat-bearer-in-chief, in hopes of blazing a path for future rodeo success.
She couldn't fly to China to do the honours herself. "I've been real busy working on my new barrel racing book," she said, and she had classes to teach at the Josey Ranch in Marshall, Tex. But "we went ahead and did a film with me presenting the hat and the saddle to the President."
It was only after she sent off the size-7 hat that she saw Mr. Xi on TV next to President Barack Obama and realized that, at 180 centimetres, the new Chinese leader is much taller than the diminutive, 150-cm Mr. Deng.
"He's larger than I would have thought," she said. "That size 7 can be stretched a little bit. But if that doesn't fit, we would love to send him exactly the right size."
Ms. Josey is barrel-racing royalty. She's one of only two women to compete at the National Finals Rodeo in four different decades, and asking her to recount her championship wins prompts a lengthy response. It's not a stretch to believe that when she gave Mr. Deng the hat in 1979, she was the most popular woman in the Simonton, Tex., arena.
She remembers his response: a simple "Thank you, Martha Josey."
From Mr. Xi, she's hoping the gratitude will sound more like a welcome for her cherished sport to take off in China.
"It would definitely be one of the greatest things, because it is one of the greatest sports in the world," she says. Besides, she says, a shorter average height in the Middle Kingdom might be an advantage. "I think the Chinese people, their size is perfect for barrel racing."
Nathan VanderKlippe