David Bailey – Industry Icon

March 10, 2018

David Bailey’s passion was to build a lifelong legacy in the bucking bull industry.  He planted the seeds by himself and people have come and gone out of his life.  He’s been called a “Man’s Man” who can be compared to John Wayne.  And it was this strength of character and personal determination to be the best that built his bucking bull breeding program into one of the most highly respected names in the history of the industry.

David has spent over 7 decades – all his life – in the cattle business.  He acquired his knowledge and skill from growing up on the family ranch in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma as the son of parents who owned and operated two very successful livestock auctions.

“I was about 10 when I started working at the auctions,” David tells us.  “But I hung around the sale barn like kids do long before that.”

All those days, months and years at the sale barn gave David an understanding of cattle.  The sale barns passed on to David, and when he decided to try his hand at bucking bulls, his keen eye for beef cattle rolled over into bulls, searching for those that would really buck.

“I’d buy Brahma cattle.  Bulls would come through the sale barn and they’d catch my eye,” David tells us.  “I’d pick up feisty little bulls and try them out to see if they’d buck.”

It was David’s dream to have his own rodeo company.  And he wanted to have one of the very best.  To do this, he had to have quality livestock and that included bulls.  David was determined to make a name for himself in the rodeo business.

“I went out and hustled and networked,” says David.  “It was tough.  Everyone wanted to produce rodeos and you had to get people to hire you.  I had rank bulls and people would say, ‘I talked to so and so and he said you had one that really bucked.  Since you got rank bulls, I’ll hire you.’  Nobody knew it would go where it did.”

Developing a herd of top quality rank bucking bulls became David’s passion.  He was always looking for that special bull.  David’s skilled eye would see something in a bull others might miss.

“I was always looking for the diamond in the rough.  I bought crossbred bulls and tried them out to see if they were any good.”

One of those crossbred bulls was to become one of the most dominant sires in the bucking bull industry.  As a foundation sire in the David Bailey breeding program, DX10 Chainsaw has built a legacy with a long list of successful offspring that just keeps growing.

“I went to a dispersal sale,” David tells the story.  “All the other big name guys were there.  Jim Shoulders, Harry Vold, everyone you can imagine.  Harry Vold bought a bull for $5,000.  I bought this little scrawny black muley.  He wasn’t worth much.  I took him home and bucked him.  He fought the chutes that first time and then he bucked.”

David took his little black muley to events, one of the most notable being the pairing of Chainsaw with the legendary bull rider Bobby Delvechio, the Italian Stallion who held the distinction of riding 38 bulls in a row.

“My fondest memories are of the events with the bull riding team called the Tulsa Twisters.  It was a Saturday night performance deal,” tells David.  “I’d pair Bobby Delvechio with Chainsaw.  Chainsaw usually threw Bobby off.”

By that time, David was developing a breeding program using F1 cross cows.  Being in the sale barn business had given him access to a large selection of livestock coming right under his nose.  David’s selective eye sought out the best.  And, eventually, he was bucking those bulls he’d raised at his rodeos.

“When there’s a diamond in the rough, you want to get it into your program.  Chainsaw produced in the arena and I wanted to breed those genetics back into my cows,” explains David.  “That bull sired Playboy Skoal and Polecat.”

Another diamond in the rough and the other foundation sire of the David Bailey breeding program was Tar Baby.

“I bought Tar Baby at a sale in Springdale.  He was part Brahma and part Simmental.  He was the beginning of the Gunslinger lines.”

Gunslinger proved himself to be one of the very best bulls of his time.  He was PRCA’s top bull in 1993 and Ty Murray was the 1993 PRCA champion rider.  Their match-up in the inaugural 1994 year of the PBR is one of the most talked about rides in the history of bull riding.

“Gunslinger was bucked at my house for the very first time,” says David proudly.  “He bucked right out of the latch.  One of the first rodeos I took him to, the judge, Brian McDonald, saw Gunslinger buck and said I needed to get enough outs to take him to the NFR as a finals bull.  We got those outs and Gunslinger went.”

The legacy from Chainsaw and Tar Baby goes on and on.  Playboy’s son Super Cool and Gunslinger’s son Lucky Strike combined to win Bucking Bull of the NFR for David Bailey.  They did it consecutively in 2002 and 2003, and 2005-2006, 4 out of 5 years, something never done before.  Also on the list of greatness is 2003 PBR Bucking Bull of the Finals Neon Nights, a member of the top 10 sire list himself.  Then there’s Wild Red Man and Red Man, and Tiger Stripes, etc., etc., etc.

David Bailey was the first to purposefully breed bucking bulls.  He put his sale barn bulls on his F1 cross cows to produce bulls that bucked.

“Charlie Plummer was the first to breed bucking bulls, but it wasn’t on purpose.  I was the first to do it with the intention of getting rank bucking bulls,” says David.

David and Charlie, along with Dan Russel, Sammy Andrews and some others who began their own breeding programs, were asked by Bob Tallman to form the original bucking bull registry, the Rodeo Stock Registry, in the late 1990’s.  It was the first DNA database created to track the offspring of the most notable sires in the bucking bull industry.  That organization went on to become what is now the ABBI.

“I was number 112 in the Rodeo Stock Registry and I’m number 112 in the ABBI today,” David tells us.

David’s program has grown and developed a great deal since he entered the registry in the late 1990’s.  He has put together a herd of cows carrying those Chainsaw and Tar Baby genetics, crossing them and double breeding them to create the outstanding bloodlines he has today.

“My cows are out of bulls that have bucked.  I keep my heifers and I keep as many cows as I can.  All the cows I have, I raised them,” David continues.  “I don’t go out and buy any.  They are all my own bloodline.”

David’s cows still live on the ranch where David grew up, breeding and having babies and raising them as they always have.  These cows are big, heavy boned cattle with an attitude to take care of their calves against any and all predators.

“It’s the same as it was 50 years ago.  The calves have to struggle to survive.  Some make it and some don’t.  There’s no telling how many great animals we’ve lost to sickness, the elements, coyotes, bears and all the other things they face out there.”

But calves do survive.  In 2016, David registered over 50 bull calves and heifers with the ABBI.

For David, he has made his dream come true.  He has created one of the very best bucking stock programs in the world from a small beginning when no one else was doing it.  The genetics he has developed are now sought after worldwide and his program’s legacy will live on through the future superstars in the ABBI registry who will pass them on to their own offspring.

“I am proud that I set the benchmark,” says David.  “It’s proof that the old school way works.  I was just trying to do the best I could.  I took pride in engineering the rankest bulls I could put together.  Then it was a landslide and everybody begins to get into it.”

That landslide has led to the large industry of buying and selling bucking stock genetics.  As David starts to wind down his career in rodeo stock, he has been holding production sales in October offering up those proven Chainsaw and Tar Baby genetics that are at the foundation of the great Bailey herd.

by Terry Lidral

for Bucking Stock Talk

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.