Bull power rankings are something I have been messing with for a long time. To be honest, it’s difficult for pure statistics to say where a bull really ranks until his career is nearly over, because bulls just don’t compete as often as riders. It will take the average bull several years to accumulate the number of outs a rider will log in just one season. For that reason, with the monthly power rankings, I will be looking back at the previous 60 days of PBR competition (including the Touring Pro Division) and choosing the bulls that really stand out.
Some of the criteria I take into account:
-The bull’s average marking
-The bull’s buckoff percentage
-Number of times the bull has faced the PBR’s best riders (roughly the Top 30 by riding and winning percentage)
-His buckoff percentage vs. those top riders
-The percentage of his outs in the past 60 days that have been marked 44 points or more.
That’s a lot of numbers to crunch, but even with all that, many bulls will be close in the purely statistical rankings because of the small number of outs the bulls are able to log in just 60 days. So, there will be a measure of subjectivity in this as well. I am looking for bulls that have been tested and proven outstanding over the past 60 days.
Because this is called a Power Ranking, we will be looking at bulls that have power. We pretty much measure bull riders by how often they are able to make the whistle, so here we will measure bulls by how impressive they are at putting a stop to qualified rides. The bulls that appear here will be bulls that buck well and have the riders number – at least for the time being.
February 2010 – Up to and including Winston-Salem
1: +123 Voodoo Child – Jeff Robinson / Beutler / McNeely: This bull is really much more than the best bull in the past month or so. Way back in November of 2006, Voodoo Child distinguished himself at the Las Vegas ABBI Classic Finals for 3-4 year old bulls by turning in one of the weakest bull scores of the entire event. Since that day, no bull has been better. For over three years, Voodoo Child has been so dominant that by purely statistical power rankings, he would be ranked first over 18, 865 other bulls that have appeared anywhere since 2003, including the past seven PBR World Champion Bulls.
For this month’s rankings, all he really had to do was what he normally does – he’s been out four times in Baltimore, New York, Tampa and Winston-Salem. Kody Lostroh and two other former World Champions didn’t stay on him for 8 seconds combined. Beau Hill did manage to take him to 4.4 seconds. He also turned in a bull score of 46 or more all four times.
2: 404 Uncle Buck – Teague Bucking Bulls: Uncle Buck has run the gauntlet of the the PBR’s best riders in the past 60 days, and averaged 45.55 points doing it. He was ridden once, by the man who may be the most consistent rider in the PBR – Valdiron de Oliveira. However, if you saw that ride, you know it wasn’t easy. It looked like it would have been less painful to buck off. Uncle Buck is the only bull on this list that has had a legitimate solid ride made on him, but since then he has skunked four very good riders in a row and scored 46 or more each time.
3: 644 Code Blue – Walton & Wagoner / Berger & Struve: Although J.B. Mauney did get a score on Code Blue in New York, no one has yet stayed in the middle of him for 8 seconds. In Baltimore he bucked off Austin Meier, thwarted Mauney’s best effort in Winston-Salem, and turfed Fabiano Vieira in Tampa. Vieria isn’t one of the PBR’s top riders, but he probably will be soon. His riding percentage is over 76 percent in a short PBR career. Code Blue averaged 45.5 points per out during this stretch.
4: 494 Pinball Wizard – Jeff Robinson / Pinnacle Bull Group: Unlike some of the others, this bull isn’t a longtime PBR heavyweight, he isn’t big or strong, and he often plays right into his opponent’s strength by spinning into the rider’s hand. Many people may not have heard of him, yet he earns a place here, because he’s tossed five out of five recent PBR riders, including Chris Shivers, Austin Meier, and McKennon Wimberly. He’s been over 44 points each time. This is a bull that probably doesn’t strike very much fear into the hearts of riders, but still….they can’t ride him lately.
5: 532 Paycheck – Hyland Cattle Company: This is another bull that many may not have seen or heard of. In January he appeared four times at three Touring Pro events, and once at Anaheim, where he denied Aaron Roy in the short round after Roy had successfully ridden one of the PBR’s more difficult bulls in Round 1. Every one of his outs in January was in a short round, and this bull also earned a spot in the short round at the PBR World Finals in October. He’s been a solid 44 points-or-better bull since last fall.
Top 5 Buckoff Record: 22 buckoffs and two very unstylish qualified rides.
Close But No Cigar:
05 Bones: Can certainly bring the pain, but has a habit of getting ridden occasionally by guys he is supposed to be able to throw off.
K93 Major Payne: Let himself get ridden by Marchi in Baltimore.
CC Chicken on a Chain: Would have been high on the list if he hadn’t let Beau Hill stay on.
22S Priceless: Impressive D&H bull, but hasn’t appeared at a Built Ford Tough Series event since November. He is pretty much the only PBR bull who’s been able to unseat Silvano Alves (remember that name…).
41/5 Deja Blue: Was ridden by Cody Nance in New York, or would surely be on this list.
— by Slade Long
(Slade Long, PBR Web Developer and Statistician, has been crunching the numbers on bucking bulls for 11 years.)
