O’Brien Raises Bucking Bulls
Donnie O’Brien of Pineville raises bulls for the bull riding industry at his farm, and he is responsible for some of the best ones.
O’Brien rode bulls when he was young and experienced an injury. While healing, he had some friends who were cutting horse trainers who got him involved in riding cutting horses competitively. He did that for 30 years and was world champion four times. After retiring from that, he started a real estate company in McDonald County, O’Brien Realty. At that time he had a long-time friend, L.J. Jenkins of Oklahoma, who was in the bucking bull business and helped O’Brien get started raising bucking bulls.
He purchased a bull from H.D. Page, which is the largest breeder in the bucking bull business.
“That bull has produced some really good ones in the business,” he said.
The bull, purchased in 2012, is named 34Y Shodacious, and he is a Brahma cross. He was a bucking bull at one time.
O’Brien raises the bulls and trains them to be bucking bulls. He teaches them to load in the bucking chute and to be patient and even bucks them a little bit.
A grandson of Shodacious, 897 Cocaine, was one of the top yearling bulls in the country in 2019. A son of Shodacious, Sum Beach 911, was one of the top bulls this year and last year. O’Brien also had a bull that placed third in North Dakota and Mississippi recently.
Another son of Shocacious is a bull named Big Black 444 that O’Brien raised and that has become very famous. Big Black has his own Facebook page and was the high-selling bull in Las Vegas at $140,000. Yet another son of Shodacious, Heavy D, has won $25,000 in lifetime earnings and was Reserve Classic Champion at Kansas City Professional Bull Riders in 2018. Another son of Shodacious is 522 Stu’s Nightmare. He is a money earner, O’Brien said.
“He’s been attempted 60 times and only rode once,” O’Brien said. He added Stu’s Nightmare was in the top 15 bulls at Madison Square Garden in New York in 2020.
“They’ve done well,” he said of his bulls.
O’Brien said a lot of people in the industry want to work with him on genetics. He said he has probably sold $25,000 worth of calves and embryos, he said.
“When I was a kid rodeoing and riding them, I just got hooked on them,” He said of raising bulls. “I really liked them. It’s one of those tough, thrilling things to go against a bull that weighs 1,500 pounds and match moves with them. I never lost that feeling through my horse career. Nowadays, I really enjoy the young cowboys that ride them. They want to be a cowboy and they want to take on that challenge to ride that bull.”
He goes to aged events a lot, in which bulls buck in their age categories. Riders start riding them at age three, and they are called derby bulls. At age four they are called classic bulls. At age five, they are not eligible for aged events, so they go to PBR bull ridings and rodeos.
At these events, everyone supports one another and is very polite, he said. He believes the culture comes from the element of danger involved.
“It’s like one big family if you’re part of it,” he said.
O’Brien said it is amazing how many bulls are moving up and down the roads on the weekends going to competitions. He estimated between 7,000 and 10,000.
“It’s a challenge for me. I guess I like the challenges,” he said, summing up his thoughts on raising bulls.