PUEBLO, Colo. – Before Cool Whip was loaded onto the trailer to take him to buck at the PBR Team Series Championship in Las Vegas in November, stock contractor Staci Addison visited him in his pen.

He was lying down, so she sat on the ground next to him, and they had a conversation.

She reminded him how hard he’d worked to get there, gave him some encouragement, and ended her pep talk the way she always does.

“And I love you no matter what.”

It may seem a little strange, and she admits that the back pen guys usually laugh at her, but Addison is adamant that her bulls understand her.

Later that night, Cool Whip bucked off Wingson Henrique da Silva in the Last Chance Game for 45.25 points, officially being crowned the ABBI Classic Champion the next day.

“I promise you, it makes a difference,” Addison said of her pep talks. “We have a World Champion! How could it not?!”

RELATED: D&H Cattle Co. standouts Flapjack and Cool Whip take home 2022 ABBI Classic titles

In 2020, Cool Whip and Addison won the world title in the ABBI Cowgirl Futurities division. As she was flanking him in the chute, the ordinarily consistent bovine laid down. Stunned, Addison went over to his head – much to the chagrin of partner H.D. Page, who was watching from the stands – and talked to him like any coach would admonish a star athlete not doing their job.

“Cool Whip, we have worked a whole year for this,” she told him. “You need to stand up and go do work.”

“And he stood up, and I said, ‘Let ‘er rip!’ And he came out and had one of his best outs ever,” Addison said. “So that’s when I truly knew. If you talk to that bull, they know. Nobody touched him. Nobody had a rope on him. Nothing. But I said, ‘Stand up and go to work,’ and he stood up, and out he went.”

Back in 2020, Addison didn’t have much of a relationship with Cool Whip. As he lives on Page’s ranch, two hours away from where Addison lives, she would see him occasionally. But this year, she says, he’s turned into a “big love bucket.”

“I call him a large chunk of athleticism, and he just wants attention,” Addison said. “He wants to be scratched. He wants to be loved up on. And that fills me up. So to have him turn that corner and be that kind of bull, and still be able to have the athleticism and the talent that he does and win like he does, it’s just been incredible. It’s hard to wrap your mind around it.”

After being perhaps the standout bull of the PBR Team Series last year, Cool Whip will make his 2023 Unleash The Beast debut this weekend at the PBR Gwinnett Chute Out in Duluth, Georgia, in the championship round (Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network).

Addison says watching Cool Whip buck and have as much success as he has has been like watching her child succeed.

One of her friends made her a t-shirt with “Cool Whip’s mom” on the back. It’s the first of a whole line of Cool Whip t-shirts.

“There’s a lot of people that don’t have anything to do with the bucking industry that, through social media, have gotten really interested in him and want the t-shirts,” Addison said. “And then, get this – I have a friend that I went to college with. He’s never, to my knowledge, been to a bull bucking, and I haven’t seen him for 30 years. And he sent me a message on social media the other day and said, ‘I’m going to get a Cool Whip tattoo.’”

The bovine, who notched three bull scores of 46 points or higher during the Team Series, is undoubtedly a star in the making. Addison says she’s seen him mature over the last year as he gets older and more confident in himself.

“I know in 2020, he would pace in his back pen. He would walk 17 miles in 10 minutes before I flanked him,” she said. “And then this year, I think he’s just emotionally grown up. The Pages have another bull named Domino, who was a nervous Nelly, and they partnered him with Cool Whip traveling. And they pen together, and they lay down kind of like cats. They hook together and lie down. It’s absolutely precious. And I think Cool Whip has kind of taken on this role of big brother. He’s kind of just come into his own.”

After first partnering with D&H Cattle Co. six years ago, Addison is now fully in the bucking bull business, hauling eight of her own to Las Vegas for ABBI competitions, and hopes to grow them into PBR bulls.

But for Cool Whip’s mom, it’ll be hard for anyone to top the golden child.

“I love him,” Addison said. “Before we had bucking bulls, I had never competed in anything ever. I mean, my entire life, I’d never been on a team, so I’m not super competitive. Oh my goodness. Now that we have bulls, it’s like all of those years have run and jumped up and bounced into me right now, and I am so competitive now. I mean, I want to win, and I want to win big every time. So to watch him compete at this level of the PBR and have as much success as he’s had, I just hope he stays healthy and still loves, loves, loves to buck.”

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media