Bob Wilfong – A Breeding Program That Keeps on Bucking

Bob Wilfong got started raising bucking bulls in the 1970’s.  He’d grown up in ranching and he was a rodeo man.

“I rodeoed for 30 years,” Wilfong told us.  “I rode broncs and bulls.  And the ranching business was in my blood.”

So, raising bucking stock just came naturally.

“Raising bucking stock was just kind of a deal to play with,” Wilfong said of his beginnings in the bucking bull business.

Then Bob Tallman started the Rodeo Stock Registry.  It was the first documentation process of bucking stock DNA.  It gave bucking stock breeders like Wilfong a chance to identify and register the DNA in their programs.  And it presented them with the opportunity to develop a breeding program with specific genetics and bloodlines.

In the 1970’s, the Wilfong ranch was raising crossbred cattle.

“We raised Charolais and Nelore cattle.  Nelores are beef cattle from Brazil that have a hump much like the Brahmas do,” explained Wilfong.  “We had a Charolais bull we were putting on some cows to use them for a commercial deal.  We got 15 or 20 little bulls.”

At the time RSR was founded, it was the common practice to buy bulls and buck them.

“I was already breeding some.  But most bulls were bought.  You’d buy a hundred bulls and you’d get one that bucked” Wilfong told us.  “We decided to take those little bulls from the Charolais down to Stephenville to buck when they were 2 years old.  Those little suckers were something else.”

At that time, Bob Tallman was setting up bucking bull futurities.  In those events, the young bulls were bucked with a 45-pound steel dummy.  Wilfong thought that was too much weight for a youngster to carry.

“People thought it was the weight that made the calves buck,” said Wilfong.  “But it was actually the squeezing on their back, not the weight that made them want to buck.  The steel on their back bones hurt them.”

So, Wilfong set out to build a better, more comfortable dummy.

“I saw this dummy they put on horses.  It was made with bars like a saddle.  There was a switch to kick it off by remote.  I sat down with a friend and we drew one out on a feed sack.  We worked on making the dummy lighter.  He was a good machinist and we ended making 6 that were used at the futurities.”

Dummies weren’t the only thing that Wilfong was improving for futurities.  He was putting together a herd of top drawer bucking stock.

“My program is pretty much a mixture of everyone else’s,” explained Wilfong.  “I just put together what I thought I should be using.  Sandy Kirby (fellow bronc rider and bucking stock breeder) sat down and counted out 16 different bloodlines.”

Those bloodlines include such highly regarded names as Hargis, Kephart, Plummer and Ronnie Roach.

But besides recognizable bloodlines, Wilfong added some straight Brahman genetics along the way.

“I got 53 head of Brahma bulls from a football player for the Houston Oilers.  He had a beef cattle program and he sold me the bulls.”

Wilfong also added some Kephart cows that provided him with a major challenge.

“I got 100 cows from Kephart and put them all together. Those cows were wild.”

And they were very athletic.

“They’d get to the fence and they’d jump right over,” Wilfong laughed.  “At that time, I had 3 young kids and they would chase those cows.  We ended up pushing the cows into a fenced corner of the pasture and held them in there.  After we did this a number of times, the cows got to where they would handle.”

Wilfong continued, “We sold those cows off and kept their heifers.  We broke the cycle.  They tend good, but they are not gentle.  They have plenty of hot.”

Charlie Plummer’s bloodlines held the genetics of the feisty British White Park Cattle.  And Wilfong bred to a Plummer bull by the name of Popeye.

“Those White Spotted Park cattle were bigger than most and had a natural come back pattern.  They’d come back and fight,” said Wilfong.  “There was a white spotted, long eared muley with a lot of front end and a lot of kick.  He loved to come back in the gate.  I didn’t like muleys, but he was so good I bred to him anyway.”

That muley produced the cow BW 51 who was the dam to the legendary Wilfong bred bull, Voodoo Child.  Wilfong decided to breed that cow to the great Houdini in hopes of getting that dreamed about superstar.  And it worked.

Born in 2002, Voodoo Child was rated by Slade Long, longtime ABBI and PBR statistician, as one of the Legendary Bulls of the PBR as a part of the Golden Child group.  This group, consisting of Voodoo Child, Chicken on a Chain, Dillinger, Little Yellow Jacket and Blueberry Wine, was said to be great athletes and honest buckers.  With a record of 101 professional outs and only 5 rides, Voodoo Child, a PRCA Bucking Bull of the Year, is considered by many to be one of the best all-around bovine athletes in the history of the sport.

Wilfong has sent many bulls on to professional competition.  One of his favorites is a bull called Pud that was bought and hauled by Thomas Taylor of Taylor Made Bulls.

“He was one of my best bulls,” said Wilfong.  “On a given day, he could be the rankest bull out there.  He was tough.  He got flown to Alaska and Hawaii and he had many outs.”

82 Pud had a Pro Bull Stats Power Ranking of 87.56.  He had a career record of 89 outs and 6 rides, and a Built Ford Tough Series average score of over 43 points.

Wilfong is big into futurities and sometimes he finds a diamond in the rough.  And he trusts his instincts.

“I was at a futurity in Stephenville with Jerry Nelson and there was this 2 year old that was in tough shape,” Wilfong told us.  “He was poor and his feet were 4 inches too long.  They put him in the chute and bucked him twice in 2 days.  He bucked the first day.  He didn’t have a lot of snap, but he kicked back and turned around.  The second day he bucked harder.”

Wilfong liked the heart he saw in the bull and he told a surprised Jerry Nelson to buy him.  It cost him $7500.

“I bought him for something to breed to.  I took him home and he was still foundering.  He spent 45 days at Dr. Warner’s.  Dr. Warner did some blood work and it was a stomach bug that we knocked out.”

For Wilfong, it’s a never-ending process of mixing and matching genetics to produce the next great bull.

“I made a deal to IVF Pud’s mama.  I bred her to Bushwacker and I got some heifers out of her.  Bushwacker produce one really nice calf.”

Over the years, Wilfong has raised a lot of top quality bucking bulls.  But the thrill of bucking the calves for the first time never gets old.

“I like to watch those calves buck.  I keep thinking about how high I can make them kick.”

And the successes are still just as exciting.

“The other day I bucked one.  I put the pin in and he blew up in the chute.  He kicked up over his head and turned back right there in the box.”

“I bucked a rank sucker.  He’s good looking and I put him in the American Heritage after I bucked him.  Calves like him tell me my program is working better all the time.”

Today, Wilfong has 130 cows at the house in Texas with 50 calves on the ground.  He has 2 other herds in different states.  And he’s pleased.

“Man, they look good.  I’m pretty excited about the crop of calves that are coming.”

With all the mixing and matching that Wilfong has done over the years, the foundation genetics still shine through.

“I had cows out of a Chianina cross bull.  He jumped the fence like a deer and I put him over 8 or 10 cows.  It’s 25 years later and I can still see that bull in my program.”

Author: Terry Lidral

Terry Lidral is a western writer/journalist who lives in Idaho. She is the publisher and editor of the online magazine Bucking Stock Talk and the online magazine Western Living Journal. Her publishing credits include Storyteller for Real American Cowboy Magazine, writing feature articles for Humps N Horns Magazine as well as a wide variety of national and international web sites, historical magazines and news publications. She is known for her "up close and personal" profiles of celebrities and industry moguls such as NPR's Tom Bodett; PBR's Wiley Petersen and D.H. Page, PRCA's Sammy Andrews, Cindy Rosser and Julio Moreno to name a few. She has been applauded for her way of making a personal connection between her readers and her subjects. She indulges in her love of rodeo by serving as an associate board member for the Caldwell Night Rodeo. She is also an accomplished trainer and handler in dog agility. Her shelties Amelie and Milo are titled in NADAC, USDAA and AKC.