LAS VEGAS – SweetPro’s Bruiser was one of the greatest bucking bulls of all time. He won three PBR YETI World Champion Bull titles from 2016-18 and is the only bull ever to win three in a row. He was also the PRCA Bucking Bull of the Year in 2017, becoming just the second bull to win both titles.

Bruiser passed away in May of this year, but his legacy is still being felt.

On Saturday night at the PBR Team Series Championship, his son Flapjack was named the 2022 ABBI Classic World Finals Event Champion.

“It’s cool that everyone gets to see what kind of producer he’s going to be,” said stock contractor H.D. Page. “There’s been a lot of Bruiser sons and daughters who have produced bulls that can compete at a high level. So it’s not a secret, but I think this is his first Classic champion that he’s produced.”

Page was also atop the shark cage Sunday afternoon to receive another prestigious buckle as Cool Whip won the season-long 2022 ABBI Classic Championship.

“Both awards are kind of like the Super Bowl of our aged events,” Page said. “We start those bulls when they’re yearlings, and they compete at a yearling event, and then a 2-year-old, and then a 3-year-old. There’s Derbies, Classics, which are 4-year-olds, and once they get through that stage, when you get to the Classic, that’s kind of the Super Bowl of our ABBI. And it’s probably the toughest thing to win because there’s not very many of them who went through that whole competition stage and they’re still bucking hard and at an elite level.

“So to have the Bull of the Finals and the World Champion, it’s quite a feat. It doesn’t happen very often. I was very fortunate to have it happen here. And both those bulls have been special from day one. They were both great futurity bulls and bucked all the way through.”

Flapjack began his stint in Las Vegas at the 2022 PBR Challenger Series Championship, bucking off Rafael Jose de Brito for a bull score of 46 points, matching his career high. He then bucked in the Last Chance Game at the Team Series Championship on Saturday night, earning 45.75 points for his 93.5-point out with Daniel Keeping.

“He tops every criteria,” Page said, noting that Flapjack’s mother was a daughter of legendary bull Stone Sober. “Those bulls are judged based on performance, some being rear and kick and intensity, and of course, they’ve got to turn back and spin. Man, he does it all.

“He’s been pretty special from day one. He’s a big standup thing, looks a lot like Bruiser. He’s colored, marked like him, and he’s got the same bucking style and almost the same temperament. It’s just cool to see those genetics passed down, and some of them even have the same what you’d think would be habits. But it’s pretty neat to see it.”

Cool Whip, meanwhile, has been a standout all season long on the PBR Team Series. He received several of the highest bull scores of the season, marked 46.25 points twice and 46 points once. After a disappointing first out, scoring 42.75 points, he never again scored worse than 45.25 points.

“He’s just a big-boned, hard-headed, hard-bucking thing since day one,” Page said. “He ended up winning reserve champion in the derby his 3-year-old year last year, but he pulled it out this time at the Classic. He’s kind of been a standout all along. Cool Whip’s probably (won) over $200,000 in his three competitive years.”

With his two bulls having so much success at such a young age – Flapjack is a 3-year-old, so he still has another year of aged competition ahead of him – the sky could be the limit for Page and D&H Cattle.

In all his years of being in the bucking bull business, Cool Whip and Flapjack are two of the best he’s ever seen, Page concluded.

“A Classic world title is as prestigious as a world title in the PBR or the PRCA,” Page said. “They rank right up there with the best of them. They’ve proven so far that they have what it takes.”

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media