OCALA, Fla. – Cord McCoy has been in search of the same golden nugget that every other stock contractor so dearly desires.
The six-time PBR World Finals qualifier-turned-bull man has been searching for a “franchise player” for McCoy Bucking Bulls. McCoy wants that bovine athlete so rank and stout who will become the pillar of his breeding program and the prized possession on his trailer.
As McCoy was making the 17-hour drive from his ranch in Lane, Oklahoma, to Ocala, Florida, for the Unleash The Beast: American Roots Edition season-opener last week, he was pretty confident his young bull Ridin Solo was ready to take the next step, but even he wasn’t sure exactly what to expect with Ridin Solo traveling this long a distance to compete.
Well, McCoy was certainly ecstatic by the time he was pulling his trailer out of the Southeastern Livestock Pavilion on Sunday night.
Ridin Solo easily met McCoy’s expectations, and exceeded them in tremendous fashion.
The soon-to-be 5-year-old bull built off an already impressive 46-point bull score on Saturday afternoon against Alex Cerqueira (4.89 seconds) by erupting for an even larger score when he bucked off 2019 Rookie of the Year Dalton Kasel in 2.26 seconds for a 47-point bull score in the championship round of Competition 2 of the PBR Monster Energy Invitational.
“You hate to act like that is what you knew, but that is what we were betting on,” McCoy said Sunday morning before Ridin Solo erupted for a second consecutive day.
“If you want to be a stock contractor, one of your goals is to own a World Champion or to be Stock Contractor of the Year. It is players like that. You talk about a baseball team; you can say it is the best nine players they can put on the field. The contractors are the same way. We are trying to put together the best load of bulls we can. Right now, Ridin Solo is the strongest bull we have, and we would like to think he is still on the upswing.”
The two outs make Ridin Solo the top bull in the 2021 YETI World Champion Bull standings through the first event of the year.
While it is only one weekend, Ridin Solo put together the kind of performance in Ocala that plenty of past World Champion Bulls would be proud of.
In fact, there were only two 47-point or higher bull scores in the entire 2020 season. Smooth Over was scored 47.5 points when he bucked off Andrew Alvidrez in 4.34 seconds in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and Chiseled notched a 47 for 5.6 seconds of work against Boudreaux Campbell at the Monster Energy Team Challenge.
“And it’s well worth it,” said two-time World Champion and CBS commentator Justin McBride of Ridin Solo’s 47-point score. “That is not an overblown score. You cannot get a bull to do anything more than that. That is just athleticism, power, speed. You name it, he’s got it all. I don’t care what other bulls you’re wanting to throw in the mix. That one right there is going to be something to get around.”
Ridin Solo posted both of his huge scores this weekend against two opposite riders. Cerqueira is a stouter bull rider compared to the leaner and lankier Kasel. Neither one gave the 1,400-pound Ridin Solo any issues.
Ridin Solo finished runner-up in the ABBI Classic standings following a 46.25-point bull score at the 2020 PBR World Finals when he bucked off Ramon de Lima in 2.17 seconds. It was quite a rebound performance against Lima, who had ridden Ridin Solo for 87.75 points a year earlier at the PBR World Finals.
Ridin Solo wound up 0.60 points shy of 2020 ABBI Classic Champion Woopaa in an intense ABBI Classic race last year.
PBR Director of Livestock Cody Lambert said before Ocala that he would put Ridin Solo in his top tier of World Champion contenders after watching the bull continue to improve last season.
“Smooth Operator is the reigning champion, but that Woopaa, the ABBI champion, was the top bull at the PBR Finals, and Cord McCoy’s bull Ridin Solo. I expect those two bulls to be right up there,” Lambert said.
McCoy is not sure when Ridin Solo will buck next, but it will possibly be when the Unleash the Beast: American Roots Edition heads to Texas in February.
Ridin Solo has been slowly on the rise since he won the 2018 ABBI Futurity title as a 2-year-old, eventually making his PBR debut as a 3-year-old in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in August 2019 when Mason Taylor rode him for 82 points.
“We saw him as a long yearling, and I shopped him to several of our partners,” McCoy said. “I was like, ‘Hey, this bull hasn’t won much money, but he is an amazing athlete, and he has talent we haven’t seen before.’ My father-in-law (Steve Best) decided to partner on the bull when we called to ask him to borrow the money. He would become a 2-year-old champion, and we pushed him into the PBR as a 3-year-old lightly.”
Best eventually sold his half ownership of Ridin Solo to Bill McCarty following the 2020 PBR World Finals as Ridin Solo’s stock continued to rise.
McCoy has been careful the past few seasons to not to push his young bull too soon. He knew he had a raw talent on his hands, but it was going to take some time to get Ridin Solo to reach his full potential.
Ridin Solo is 10-3 in his premier series career with an average bull score of 44.5 points, but he looks to have reached a new level in his last five outs at all levels (46.05 average bull score).
“We feel like we paced ourselves for the last two-and-a-half years to get him to this level in this arena,” McCoy said. “His mind has come a long ways in the last year-and-a-half. Sometimes he would try to put out more energy and effort before the gate opened. We really worked on that a lot, and it seemed like his 2-year-old year was all training. All the training happened in the chute. Whenever that was done, he realized that is not a pressure situation. He has gotten better at controlling his energy until he leaves there.
“The riders are even trusting him a lot more that they can get him set right in the way they want him. We think we are making good bets and have the complete package.”
Kasel said he believes Ridin Solo will be a great fit for the top bull riders in the world, and he is looking forward to getting a rematch after getting dusted by the bovine athlete.
“That bull is going to fit me whenever I stay on him,” Kasel said. “I am excited about that bull. He is great, and I will pick him every time I get the chance. He bucks really hard. I am excited to see what he and Woopaa do this year. Ridin Solo is the real deal.”
McCoy is not going to count his chickens before they hatch any time soon. Ocala was a great start, but this weekend is the first of many, many more events before a World Champion is crowned later this year in Las Vegas at the 2021 PBR World Finals.
“We are a long ways from November 15,” McCoy said with a grin. “We are going to try and give him every opportunity to be a champion. Good start. We are No. 1 so far.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media