PUEBLO, Colo. ― So far this season, we've seen a significant drop in riding percentage in the short rounds at Built Ford Tough Series events. With roughly half the total number of short round outs we saw last season already in the books, riding percentage has fallen from 30 percent in 2012 to 17 percent so far in 2013.

Don't look for that trend to change in Louisville, Ky. PBR Livestock Director Cody Lambert has 17 bulls set aside for short round duty, with Bushwacker and Asteroid at the top of the list. As a group, they are 77-4 on the season. Fourteen of the 17 are unridden in 2013, and four of them are unridden in their professional careers. The average career buckoff percentage of this set of bulls is 90 percent. The way the bulls are lined up, if only 10 riders qualify for the short round, Shepherd Hills Trapper and King Lopez will be the two most rider friendly bulls in it, and they really aren't that friendly.

"I think it looks a lot like the short round pen from Albuquerque where they only rode one," Lambert said. "It's a tough set of bulls. The guys who make the short round have their work cut out for them."

Headlining the bull pen in Louisville are Bushwacker and Asteroid, appearing together for the third time this season. Asteroid has been to six events this season, and was the highest-marked bull at just one of them, while Bushwacker has been the highest marked bull at all five events he's appeared in.

"It's a tough set of bulls. The guys who make the short round have their work cut out for them."

"I've said in interviews several times this year that Bushwacker is the best bull I've ever seen," Lambert said. "Asteroid is the reigning World Champion, and he won that by beating Bushwacker, so you know how good he is. We see other bulls that step up to their level at times, but day in and day out, Bushwacker and Asteroid are competing over the heads of every other bull. Right now they are on a level by themselves."

Asteroid's owners, Circle T Ranch out of Keatchie, La., have a total of four bulls in the first 10 short round bulls that will appear in Louisville. David's Dream, Shepherd Hills Trapper and Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey will appear alongside Asteroid.

"I think Circle T Ranch in general has the best set of bulls in the PBR," Lambert said. "They don't have the depth that Jeff Robinson or H.D. Page has, but their top end, bull for bull no one can match them. When they come to an event, they make the short round much tougher."

If 15 riders qualify for the short round, they bring Jeff Robinson's Delco into play, along with two more Circle T bulls, Big & Rich and Palm Springs. Big & Rich may be the best bull to draw at the entire event.

"Big & Rich looks like the best bull to have in any round, anywhere you go," said Lambert. "You're not going to make a mistake and ride him, you're not going to be a little behind and ride him. If you're a Built Ford Tough Series rider, you should expect to get a score on Big & Rich. But, the only two guys who have managed to do it are J.B. Mauney and Guilherme Marchi ― two of the very best in the business. He's thrown off L.J. Jenkins, Reese Cates, Ben Jones, Brendon Clark, he got J.W. Harris at the National Finals Rodeo before Circle T bought him. Those are guys you would expect to ride a bull with great timing and a consistent pattern. There may be more to him than meets the eye, because he's faced some serious competition and bested almost all of them."

At the other end of the spectrum are a few bulls that riders just haven't gotten along with at all, including Tom Teague's 850 Teflon Tom and K Bar C's 107 Rock & Roll, both unridden, along with a colorful behemoth called Mississippi Hippy. Bull riding has long been hyped as a sport where 150 pound men do battle with 2,000 pound bulls, but that is largely hype. The majority of bulls do not weigh 2,000 pounds, most weigh much less. But, in the case of Mississippi Hippy, there is no hype ― he's really big.

"He weighs in at nearly 2,300 pounds ― he's just huge," said Lambert. "A bull that big that bucks hard just has to be stronger than a smaller bull, and he pretty much has to be slower too, and he's both of those. He doesn't really have great timing, and he's not easy to ride. I wasn't sure about him when he first came around, partly because of his size. But he's earned my confidence. I believe he'll buck for 8 seconds, and I believe they'll be 92 if they ride him."

Follow Slade Long on Twitter @ProBullStats