McCoy has gone from bull rider to bull breeder
At the J.W. Hart Invitational seven years ago, a disheartened Cord McCoy had just been thrown off a bull and was dragging his bag to the trailer when he was chased down by an official from the bull riding event.
“Do you want this check?” the man told McCoy. “Your bull won a bunch of money.”
At the time, McCoy was riding bulls and raising bulls. He would compete in the same events where his bulls were bucking.
“It kind of hit me like a train,” McCoy said. “I went full-time with bucking bulls that day.”
The McCoy Ranch in Lane, Oklahoma, is now producing some of the best bucking bulls in the land. Three of McCoy's bulls will be bucking Saturday night at the Professional Bull Riders' Express Classic Invitational in Chesapeake
Energy Arena, including Mr. Majestic, who has been to the PBR World Finals three times.
“He's the best bull in the trailer right now ,” McCoy said of his bulls.
Mr. Majestic is the grandson of Bodacious, a legendary bucking bull that has been called “the greatest bull ever to buck.” Bodacious is in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Hall of Fame, t he Bull Riding Hall of fame and is a PBR Brand of Honor bull.
Bodacious and Bruiser, an Oklahoma-bred bull from D& H Cattle Company near Ardmore, are the only two bulls to have been both PBR world champions and PRCA Bucking Bull of the Year. Mr. Majestic literally comes from good stock.
“Breeding is the biggest part of the bucking bull business,” McCoy said .“If you want to breed a racehorse, you want to breed the fastest to the fastest. You don't throw a Shetland pony in there and expect Secretariat.”
The breeding of bucking bulls has become a very sophisticated operation of genetics. McCoy buys, sells and trades the DNA of prize bulls with other breeders from all over the world.
“The bucking bull business has gone global for the McCoy Ranch,” said t he cowboy made famous along with his brother, Jet, for their participation in CBS' The Amazing Race. “You can get online and buy genetics all over. It's made the world small.”
Today's bucking bulls are considered and called athletes by everyone in the bull riding game. They have a diet, training and exercise programs outlined for them much like the two-legged kind of professional athletes.
“They get babied around,” McCoy said. “In
Jim Shoulders' day they probably had 20 bull s penned together living off the land and bucking three times a week.”
Bucking bulls are pampered because they mean so much to their owners' livelihood. People invest in bucking bulls like the stock market. McCoy is a part-owner on many bulls, and how they perform in events like the Express Classic Invitational matter to the bottom line.
“Those eight seconds at Chesapeake Arena will even make or break our spring production sale at the ranch,” McCoy said. “We are selling their offspring, t heir embryos. They' re affecting way more than just those eight seconds.”
With so many bucking bull breeders from Oklahoma and the region, the Express Classic Invitational in Oklahoma City attracts the best bulls in the business.
“The bull power here is phenomenal ,” said Oklahoma bull rider Ryan Dirteater.