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Unridden Mezcal Ready to Roll for Chicago 15/15 Bucking Battle

By: Justin Felisko

PUEBLO, Colo. – It has been eight years since a YETI World Champion Bull has run the table and gone unridden for an entire season.

Three-time PBR World Champion Bull Bushwacker capped his legendary career with a 14-0 season with his third world title in 2014.

In a testament to the strength of the rider locker room that it has been challenging for the best bulls in the world to continue to remain unridden. They are always facing the top riders at an event in either a 15/15 Bucking Battle or championship round.

2021 YETI World Champion Bull Woopaa was head and shoulders the top bovine athlete last season, averaging 46.73 points per out and running away with the world title. Woopaa, though, is a bull that every rider is craving to draw every week thanks to his average ride score of 95.94 points (nine qualified rides).

However, there is still something special about the beast in the bull pen. A bull that causes fits for riders and appears to be unconquerable.

Paradigm Bull Company stock contractor Jeremy Walker would love for Mezcal to one day become that bull, and so far, the bull has made things pretty tough for his human foes. Mezcal heads into this weekend’s PBR Tractor Supply Co. Invitational 15/15 Bucking Battle (Sunday 3 p.m. ET CBS national television) 16-0 at all levels of competition, and 12-0 on the Unleash The Beast.

“I think there needs to be something in there, a mountain to climb,” Walker told PBR.com during the 2021 PBR World Finals. “Something to go after. A dragon to be slayed, per se. If you expect them to ride a bull every time, I think the fear turns the other direction to where the rider is afraid they will be the one who bucks off them. If you have a bull who throws you off, you are just like everybody else in the locker room, but if you ride an unridden one, you put yourself above them.”

That doesn’t mean Walker is only rooting for buckoffs, even if he is known to throw some playful shade at riders when his bulls do well.

“As long as Mezcal bucks hard and does his job, if they ride him, I am okay with it,” Walker said. “If they buck off, I am fine with that, too.”

Mezcal made his debut at the Monster Energy Buck Off at the Garden last weekend in New York City with an impressive 3.7-second buckoff of 2019 Rookie of the Year Dalton Kasel. The soon-to-be 7-year-old bull was marked an event-best 46.25 points.

 
“He had a lot of things going against him, and he found a way to win,” Walker told PBR.com this week. “We’ll take it. I think brighter days and warmer weather will bring a little more out of him, I hope. He hadn’t bucked anywhere since Vegas, so hopefully being back in the arena and on the road will harden him back up into performance shape.”

Mezcal is one of two unridden bulls bucking in the 15/15. Up-and-comer Dennis The Menace is 13-0 at all levels of competition and 9-0 on the premier series. The soon-to-be 5-year-old made his season debut in New York with a quick 1.39-second buckoff of previous world No. 1 Mason Taylor for a 47.75-point bull score.

The 15/15 Bucking Battle draw will be finalized following the conclusion of the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour’s Denver PBR Chute Out at the National Western Stock Show Wednesday night (9 p.m. ET on RidePass on Pluto TV).

Mezcal was in contention for the 2021 YETI Bull of the Finals title last year before getting called for a foul against Joao Ricardo Vieira in the championship round. Before that out, Mezcal had erupted for a 46.5-point bull score when he bucked off Thiago Salgado in 1.92 seconds.

In 11 of his clean outs (he was called for a foul in three trips), Mezcal averaged 45.5 points per out and had an average buckoff time of 2.31 seconds.

Walker acquired Mezcal last year and hopes that, now that he has owned the son of Stone Sober for a year, the bovine athlete will be ready to take another step forward in 2022.

“I am a one-trip-at-a-time kind of guy,” Walker said. “I have learned to trust him a little more this year coming up. He had the wow factor, the leap, the kick, the direction change, the power. I didn’t know what he would do if anyone got around the corner. When Kaique (Pacheco) had him at Vegas this year, he rode him about 6 seconds, and he kept bucking and turning back. He showed me there he is going to keep pushing. I think this year will be his best chance at it.”

Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media

© 2021 PBR Inc. All rights reserved.

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