At some point in the next week, two men will climb onto Bushwacker. Neither will be happy about it. Bushwacker is the most unaccommodating of the 165 bulls awaiting Pro Bull Riding's 43 top cowboys at the sport’s World Finals in Las Vegas. During the Wednesday-through-Sunday affair, each rider will get at least five chances to prove his worth by attempting to stay on an elite bucking bull for a full "ride" of at least eight seconds. Dating back to October 2009, Bushwackerhasn’t let a single cowboy succeed.
By all accounts, there's no way to build, or even breed, the better bucking bull. The kicking reflex is instinctive; as PBR livestock director Cody Lambert notes, bucking and spinning—the movements bulls use to throw riders—is how calves play. What distinguishes PBR-caliber bulls is an inexhaustible will to shed riders. Tom Teague, owner of Bones, the now-retired 2008 and 2010 Bucking Bull of the Year, believes the drive to competitively buck is a "freak" development; more luck than genetics. But the evaluation and harnessing of that trait is accomplished with basic manipulation of the bulls’ cognitive circuitry. (Animal rights activists can get their stationery out now.)
The standard tool is the flank strap, a rope that is tied around a bull's torso just in front of its hind legs. The strap is tightened to a point of providing pressure without pain. When the bull bucks, the elongation—and subsequent narrowing—of its torso removes the tension of the strap, leading the bucker to believe it has shed the foreign object. That’s the desired endgame, so the process repeats once the bull’s midriff recoils and the tightness returns. Since there's a far more significant foreign object in competitive situations—namely, the rider—the strap is intended to enhance the bucking effect.
A more divisive method, used for training and in competitions featuring two-year-old bulls, is the remote-controlled dummy. It’s a 10-to-35-pound box that gets harnessed to a bull's back. The animal's owner—or stock contractor, as they're called in the game—stands to the side with a remote that releases the box, simulating the act of ejecting a rider. To some owners, dummies are valid for providing experience before adding human riders, so long as they're deployed judiciously. Warns 2010 PBR Stock Contractor of the Year Jeff Robinson, "A bull only has so many trips in them. You don't want to wear them out with dummies." But others, like 20-year-old stock contractor Mesa Pate, invoke Pavlov with a reinforcement-based regimen. "When a bull kicks especially hard or jumps really high, I'll release the dummy," she explains. "It's the best training tool we have. The only one, really."
Which is a scary thought. For while it seems to suggest an untapped market in bucking-bull training methods, it also means Bushwacker notched a perfect record based on heart and haunches alone.
