He is a supremely gifted athlete who may well be a champion bull in the not-so-distant future.
Or, come Monday morning when the PBR's thunderous tour leaves Tulsa, Oklahoma, he could be fast-tracked to relative anonymity, never to be seen on the elite tour again.
That’s the all-or-nothing line on one of the most intriguing bulls to come on the scene in recent years – a long-legged, big-hipped, tall, muscular, black-and-white bovine who sometimes bucks gloriously high and on occasion abruptly stops working as if he’s gone on strike.
A bull stops bucking before the 8, and he’s ordinarily banned from PBR.
But this is no ordinary bull.
He happens to be the son of Air Time, one of the most athletically spectacular underachievers in the history of bucking bulls, and that special bloodline along with a savvy social media push, add up to a second chance in Tulsa.
He’s known as Bill the Butcher, and by all measures he is his father’s son.
With his dashing black spots on milky white coat, Bill bears a close resemblance to his famous father, only sparser on the spots, as if they started to run low on black paint.
The New York Times’ John Clarke described Air Time as a “compact car of an animal.” With 200 additional pounds on his 1,850-pound frame, Bill the Butcher is more in the mid-sized range.
“He bucks hard, he twists hard, he kicks hard,” said the bull’s owner Ben Marquis. “He’s Air Time’s son, that’s for sure. He jumps really high right after a big explosion right out of the gate.”
Bill the Butcher did just that with Ryan Dirteater temporarily on top as his violently jerked-about passenger for 1.56 seconds at the PBR Touring Pro event in Vinita, Oklahoma in June.
Dirteater was ejected like a fighter pilot suddenly without engines, and the bull was marked at 46.5.
“He beat me out of the chute, got my chin up, and yanked me down,” said Dirteater, who at the time was clueless to the bull’s bloodline. “He got a lot of air. Had dang good trip on me. I’d like to try him again."
If Dirteater is in the championship round in Tulsa, and has the choice, he can try again. Bill the Butcher will be a $25,000 bounty short-go bull on Sunday with the potential for a score in the mid-90s.
Talk about a big moment as the elite tour’s second half opens.
One of the times Bill the Butcher (then called A.J., for Air Time, Jr.) stopped bucking after teasing fans with a rare high-flying agility was when paired with Joao Ricardo Viera during the Unleash the Beast championship round in Greensboro in October of 2018.
Stock contractors who own bulls that come to a standstill won’t see a Christmas card or future invite from Cody Lambert, PBR’s Director of Livestock.
“It’s rare for bulls to get over that; it’s like they’ve given up,” Lambert said. “Next time someone starts to ride them, if things don’t go their way, that’s their signature move. They think, ‘If I stop, the rider will get off me.’”
If bulls are smart, Air Time’s son is the proverbial A student, according to those who know him.
The question is, will he go to a move already in his repertoire, one that proves no one can force a bull to buck?
“(Stop bucking) once, and they’ll usually do it again,” Lambert said.“We’ll never know what he’ll do until someone rides him again.”
<imgsrc="/media/xbxo3kj1/2019-08-08-his-father_s-son-bill-the-butcher-getting-air-time-in-tulsa.jpg" alt="Bill the Butcher throws rider" data-udi="umb://media/a9ee6ebe1b3b4620a46f51c5ec1eb173" />
Lambert is comfortable in giving the bull that chance while maintaining his primary responsibility to protect the riders’ interests through the bounty bull format that will offer a short round re-ride if need be.
“There’s only one place for Bill the Butcher and that’s the big tour, the Unleash The Beast,” Lambert said. “Physically, he’s a champion-caliber bull.”
Yet everybody, Lambert more than anyone, knows this is a mental game as much as physical – for rider and bull.
While nobody can get inside the Bill the Butcher’s head, the handlers of the son of Air Time believe a sore back has kept him from reaching his potential like when he won an ABBI Classic at the J.W. Hart Invitational in June, 2018.
They’ve given him an abundance of electromagnetic therapy and are confident he won’t pull a sudden work stoppage in Tulsa.
He’s kind of the whole package – bloodlines, physical specimen, a little more athletic than other bulls,” said Jeremy Walker of Paradigm Bull Co., Marquis’ partner who’s hauling Bill the Butcher to Oklahoma.
“I hauled Pearl Harbor, Sky Harbor, and was around this bull’s dad when he got started. This bull, when he’s on, is better than any of them,” Walker said.
Is Bill the Butcher smart enough to know that stopping one more time is sure to get him kicked off the big tour?
“I wish he could sit down and drink some coffee and tell me his plans; life would be a lot less stressful for me,” Walker said. “When the gate opens, it’s up to him.”