Berger to become First Stock Contractor to Supply all the Bulls for one Premier Series Event
By: Justin Felisko
PUEBLO, Colo. – Reigning Stock Contractor of the Year Chad Berger figured his annual Dakota Community Bank & Trust Invitational, presented by Cooper Tires, was likely going to be put on ice this year because of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.
Berger postponed his annual Touring Pro Division/Velocity Tour event back in June, and it just seemed as if the chances of him and his partners putting on the annual event were going to be for naught.
However, when it became apparent that the PBR’s Unleash The Beast schedule had an opening at the beginning of August, Berger thought there would be no better way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his event than by making it a premier series event.
“It is our 20th anniversary,” Berger said. “It looked like we weren’t going to be able to have it, and it wasn’t looking good. Then meeting with (PBR CEO) Sean (Gleason) and the gang (in Sioux Falls), and we put something together. It was good for both of us, and we made it happen. It is huge for Bismarck. It is huge for North Dakota.”
Berger, though, was not sure if his tradition of making the Bismarck event a showcase of his bull power could still continue. He knew he had to supply a list of bulls to PBR Director of Livestock Cody Lambert with the hope that as many of his bulls as possible could be selected.
The Mandan, North Dakota, stock contractor submitted a list of 88 bulls.
When Lambert saw the list, it was apparent to him that he could use 71 of Berger’s bulls, bucking some bulls twice on Friday and Saturday night, and still put forth a top-notch premier series event.
“We have never seen this before, and I never thought we would have seen it,” Lambert said earlier this week. “We will buck 35 bulls in each of the two rounds and 15 in the short go, and they live there so there is no traveling for them. So I will go with the best bulls twice. Many of the bulls in the championship round will be out in the first round on Friday night. We will do the event with 60 to 65 bulls. Out of those 88 bulls he sent me, they were all good, but there were 17 bulls I cut off there. I cut some that were good enough to go at times, but to make it as good as possible I am picking from a group of 70 bulls, but I get to buck Speed Demon and those bulls twice.
“We are going to have a tough, tough set of bulls, and it is all going to be Chad’s. It is a record that will probably never be broken.”
Fans can watch Round 1 Friday night exclusively on RidePass beginning at 8:45 p.m. ET.
Never before in the PBR’s 27-year history has one stock contractor supplied all of the bulls for a premier series event.
Berger has been close before, though.
Berger set a PBR record in 2018 when he had 75 bulls selected for the Unleash The Beast event in Tacoma, Washington.
Seventy-three bulls bucked over the course of the two-day event in the Pacific Northwest, and Berger should break that record for most outs by one contractor at a premier series event on Saturday night with at least 85 outs needed to pull off this weekend’s UTB event.
“I am pretty damn excited,” Berger said. “They are going to have all of my bulls. This will be the first time one guy did a whole premier series event. We will set a record this weekend. I showed (Lambert) my list, and he said we don’t need anybody else. We will buck a lot of them twice.”
Lambert admitted that Bismarck is a unique circumstance and it is not going to become the norm. He also does not expect to see a drop in performance by using only Berger bulls. The PBR co-founder would not buck solely Chad Berger bulls if the quality of the competition was going to suffer.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led the PBR to limiting the amount of people behind the bucking chutes, and this weekend presents a unique opportunity with the UTB event being held in Berger’s backyard.
The lack of travel for Berger’s bulls and the proximity of his Mandan ranch – roughly 10 miles – gives Lambert the opportunity to tap into Berger’s bullpen.
“A big part of it is because it is Chad’s own event,” Lambert said. “If we were going to Sioux Falls again this year, I have tried to use as many people as we can, but we are limited with how many people we can have behind the chutes and be in the bubble with the contestants. I want to put as many people back to work as possible, but at the same time we are limited. This particular event, seeing as it is Chad’s event and he is the one making it happen, and he has more good bulls than anybody in the history of bull riding ever had at one time, everything fell together that it worked doing this time.
“This isn’t an experiment we will be duplicating somewhere else. This is his hometown, and the bulls live there to start with. And I got a chance to use them twice. For me, if I can use the PBR Finals-quality bulls two days in a row, then I am doing a better job. At the end of the day, Chad was hoping I would do something like this, but he didn’t ask me or try to convince me to do it this way. He just sent me a list of bulls and said he thought he had enough bulls of that quality to make it happen. I said, ‘Send me the list and we will see.’ I didn’t promise him anything.”
The reality is that it is not that surprising to see Berger, who is two months removed from three heart surgeries, pull off the accomplishment.
Berger has won the PBR’s Stock Contractor of the Year award, which is given annually to the stock contractor who is voted as the best in the business by the PBR’s top riders, nine times. He has won the award six years consecutively (2014-2019).
It was only a year ago when Berger’s bulls helped produce one of the most memorable events in PBR history. On the final night of his annual event, there were eight 90-point rides in Berger’s $125,000 team challenge, presented by Marquis Metal Works.
All signs point to Berger being in contention to win a 10th Stock Contractor of the Tear title this season, but he admits it is getting harder and harder to stay atop the pedestal.
“Well, I got stiff competition between J.W. (Hart) and the Pages,” Berger said. “I still don’t think anybody has as deep a pen as me, and I will prove that this weekend. I think I have another title coming, but they are out there and they are after me. That is for sure. I think I have another one in me.
“I think I have 10 more (titles) in me, but that is beside the point. I am not going down without a fight, I can tell you that.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
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