In the Bull Pen: St. Louis

St. Louis. – The past few weeks have been busy ones for the bulls of the PBR. The Iron Cowboy and the RFD-TV’s THE AMERICAN last week, along with THE AMERICAN semi-finals kept a lot of bulls busy. The Kansas City Built Ford Tough Series event the week prior featured a 15/15 Bucking Battle and an ABBI Classic round.

The Bass Pro Chute Out, presented by Cooper Tires, in St. Louis will mark a return to normalcy in the BFTS schedule. This is a standard three-day event with three long rounds and a short go. The best bulls in St. Louis will go in the short go, and there are some impressive buckoff records in that group.

Riley Bucking Bulls’ Gangster’s Wildside is 11-0 on the BFTS, and just last week he eliminated Robson Palermo from the Iron Cowboy.

Chad Berger’s Boot Jack, 34-2, hasn’t been ridden at any level by anyone in close to two years, and he may be the smartest and most deceptive bull going right now.

K Bar C’s Bad Touch is 15-0 at the BFTS level, and 29-0 overall. He’s thrown Cooper Davis and Silvano Alves (twice) this year.

Keith Strickland’s Lester Gillis is 16-0, and holding his own at this level. His record is more impressive given that he’s not very tricky, and he’s primarily a pattern spinner.

K Bar C’s Slinger Jr. is 30-1, and was last ridden in late 2015.

In addition to these, Gene Owen’s Seven Dust (22-1), Cochise (20-3), Mystical (7-0), and Hey Jack (13-0) are slated for the short round. TLW’s Big Cat (31-1) and Jared Allen’s Bad Beagle (5-1) are also penciled in.

Berger will have the biggest presence in St Louis overall, with 25 bulls on his truck, and he brings veteran bull power to the short round with Boot Jack, Crossfire, Smooth Operator, and Beaver Creek Beau.

In the long rounds, livestock director Cody Lambert commonly sets the second round up to be a slightly tougher than the first round, and that will be the case here in St. Louis. K Bar C and Jared Allen have the biggest presence in Round 1, while Berger and Rocking I Rodeo account for a lot of the Round 2 bulls.

A quick glance at the draw for the first two rounds looks promising. There are a lot of good bulls on tap, a lot of rideable bulls, and it’s drawn up well for the riders. We should see some good rides through the first two days, although last year St. Louis went in favor of the bulls. They only gave up 36 scores in 130 outs.

St. Louis has been the scene of some of the biggest rides in PBR history. Gilbert Carrillo scored 96 points here on Perfect Storm in 2001, Renato Nunes scored 95.75 on Chicken on a Chain in 2008 and Nick Buckley scored 95 points on Locomotive Breath way back in 1999. Look for a solid pen of bulls this weekend, and a chance for some of today’s riders to contribute to the history of high scoring rides here.