Kiefer Sutherland is an Emmy award winner for his role as agent Jack Bauer on “24,” but he also holds another prestigious title: rodeo champion.

“What I lacked as a roper and a cowboy I could make up for in horses,” the 40-year-old actor says in the January/February issue of Men’s Vogue magazine, on newsstands today (Dec. 26). “Roping is one of those sports like polo where you get infinitely better the better your horses are. I had some great horses.”

Sutherland, who has starred in such films as “The Sentinel” and “A Few Good Men,” learned the basics of horseback riding in 1994’s “The Cowboy Way.” He took time off from making movies in 1998, and wound up winning the national team roping competition twice.

“Those two years on the ranch were my college years,” Sutherland recalls. “Three or four guys riding around in a truck from rodeo to rodeo. It was fantastic