MATT SCHARPING’S PHENOM GENETICS BUILT ON THE COMPETITIVE EDGE

by Terry Lidral

Matt Scharping’s business is bucking bulls.  Bucking bulls are also his passion.  To be doing what he loves for a living is what Scharping calls a blessing.  And he shares that blessing with others through partnerships with his bulls.

Like a lot of other people who have found themselves drawn to bucking bulls, Scharping happened on the majestic beasts by chance.

“I’ve been blessed,” says Scharping of his success with the business he started in 2007 and named Phenom Genetics.  “I didn’t grow up with bucking bulls.  I didn’t know anything about them until I saw a bucking bull web site when I was looking to buy a horse for my daughter.”

Scharping was intrigued with the industry that bred performance animals for a high-level competitive sport.

“I grew up on a farm in Minnesota with animals.  I was a competitive go kart driver and sprint car racer and I love high performance things.  I started researching bucking bulls and I fell in love with the idea of raising and working with these great animal athletes,” Scharping told us about how he was drawn to the business.

It is Scharping’s nature to dedicate himself to the success of whatever undertaking he choses.  He was a successful race car driver and he was a top national salesman in the mobile tool business.  When he became interested in the bucking bull industry, he set out to gather the information he would need to have a high level of success in it too.

“I did research and found out everything I could about the bucking bull business,” said Scharping.  “I’m very competitive and if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it right.  I wanted to be good at it.  I studied bloodlines and I knew which ones produced good bulls.  I was living in Michigan and I found a Reindeer Dippin’ heifer in an online auction.  I bid on her and I didn’t even have a place to keep the heifer.  I won, and thankfully, I was able to board her at the Ravenscroft Ranch.”

With that first heifer, Scharping added four others to start out his breeding program.  He’d studied the bloodlines and he made sure to get quality.

“The sorry ones cost just as much as good ones to feed,” Scharping said about buying bucking stock.  “I got the best I could find.  The five heifers I started off with were from Reindeer Dippin’, Mossy Oak Mudslinger, Kid Rock, Tahonta and Panhandle Slim bloodlines.”

For Scharping, a move back to the family farm in Minnesota from Michigan and a fresh start set the stage for big things to come.  It took a total remodel of the working facilities and rebuilding of all the fences.  But Scharping was able to turn the family farm into a bucking stock ranch and bring his small herd to Minnesota.

“The bucking stock business has to be a labor of love or it won’t make you happy.  It’s a lot of hard work and it’s an expensive labor of love,” stated Scharping.  “When I started out, I thought it would be a hobby.   My tool business was taking care of the expenses so I didn’t have to make money with my bucking stock.”

But Scharping found himself in the enviable position of having immediate success.

“I bought a bull that was a Mossy Oak Mudslinger son out of a Yellow Jacket daughter.  In the first calf crop with my 5 heifers I got two bulls.  One of them was Hy Test who went to the PBR when he was barely 3 years old.  It was crazy.  Hy Test went on to be a 4-time PBR Finals and NFR bull, and was a CBR World Champion Bucking Bull.  I had success right off.”

Scharping didn’t take his success lightly.  And he had no delusions that he could make money bucking bulls in the PBR.

“Very few people make money hauling bulls to the PBR,” cautioned Scharping.  “As breeders, we take bulls to the PBR to market them as sires.  By the time you get them there and feed them, you hope you can break even.”  

Since he had the tool business to take care of the expenses, he decided to give his winnings to a worthy charity.  When he found Jared Allen’s “Homes for Wounded Warriors” he knew where he wanted his money to go.  He had no idea what was going to happen next.

“I contacted Jared Allen and told him that I wanted to donate my winnings from my bulls to his “Homes for Wounded Warriors” program.  We became friends and he bought half interest in a couple of my bulls,” said Scharping of the beginnings of partnership with the NFL star.  “He ended up falling in love with the bulls.  And then he decided I should sell my tool business and we should raise bulls together,” Scharping said with a hint of lingering disbelief in his voice.

“Right then, I got an offer to sell my route and my tool business,” continued Scharping.  “It seemed like the Good Lord put things into place for me.  That partnership with Jared Allen started what I have today.”

Allen and Scharping formed the Jared Allen’s Pro Bull Team that became one of the most successful pens of bulls on the PBR tour.  For Scharping, it was a good fit.  He kept doing what he had been doing and Jared Allen, who was a professional football player for the Minnesota Vikings, supplied the money along with some motivated enthusiasm to promote his charity.

“Jared Allen owned some of the bulls and the truck.  I owned the cows,” Scharping explained.  “Being on the PBR tour gave ‘Homes for Wounded Warriors’ good media exposure and we bought some great bulls that became part of the Phenom Genetics breeding program.”

With Scharping’s exceptional bull knowledge and Allen’s deep pockets, the partners put their resources together and purchased two bulls that became super stars on the professional bull scene.

“We bought 43X Magic Train from D & H Page Cattle Company for $200,000,” said Scharping of the purchase of one of the highest priced bulls ever to be sold in the bucking bull industry.  “And we bought #927 Air Time from Scott Accomazzo for $150,000.” 

“Magic Train was the son of 347 Crazy Train out of the PBR Bucking Bull of the Year Mossy Oak Mudslinger.  He’s been a PBR short round bull,” continued Scharping.  “Now Air Time was sired by a son of WNFR Finals Bull Jack Daniels Happy Hour called Big Cat.  And Air Time’s dam was a daughter of Backlash.  It was an accidental breeding,” said Scharping with a chuckle.  “Sometimes those accidental breedings turn out to be the best thing.”

That accidental breeding led to a bull that put up one of the highest scores ever to be recorded in the PBR.  That 47.5-point bull score established Air Time’s legacy in the tales of the PBR and garnered the Jared Allen’s Pro Bull Team high respect in the stock contractor arena.

Talk about other bulls here on the Jared Allen’s Pro Bull Team!

In 2018, at Allen’s request, Scharping bought out the Jared Allen’s Pro Bull Team which again became known as Phenom Genetics.  The year before, Air Time had been retired due to injury and was living his   life as a breed bull on Scharping’s ranch.  And by that time, Scharping had built a highly successful bucking bull program that today is producing top quality bucking bulls. 

“I have about 60 cows for breeding, so with calves and bulls added to my cows, I have about 150 head.  I love the cows.  They are the foundation of my program.  You make money with cows.  Bulls don’t make you money by themselves.”

But there is one bull on Scharping’s ranch that is earning his keep.  He’s retired from competition, and with his great reputation as a bucking bull, Air Time is producing calves that everybody wants.

“Air Time is the most profitable bull on my place.  People want to buy his calves and he’s producing.  I sold one of his unbucked calves to Braun Bucking Bulls in Texas called Air Support.  That bull has proven himself in the PBR.  I’m happy for the Brauns.  They aren’t big time stock contractors and it’s the first one they bought.  That bull is worth a whole lot of money but the Brauns aren’t selling.”

The fact is that Air Support is scoring big like his daddy.  At the recent PBR Global Cup final round, Air Support bucked off Cole Melancon to score 46.5 points and was named Bull of the Event.  The following week at the St. Louis PBR, Air Support was high marked bull of the event with a bull score of 46 points.

For Scharping, the success of his unbucked calf came as no surprise.  He has confidence in the overall quality of his bucking stock.

“I know all my cows and heifers, and I know every bull calf.  Every cow has to produce quality calves or I sell them off.  If the offspring don’t meet my standards, I sell the whole family.  They all leave.  That way there’s a higher probability of making a good bull,” explained Scharping.

Because Scharping is confident in the calves his cows produce, he doesn’t push a bull’s talent and ability to buck while they are youngsters.

“I don’t breed for futurities.  I don’t force a calf to buck and I don’t cull on anything but laziness and lack of heart with a dummy,” Scharping told us with resolution.  “Not all bulls buck great with a dummy.  Some bulls need a rider, so If you cull just by the dummy, you are probably getting rid of some good rider bulls.”

For Scharping it’s not all about a bull having everything figured out when he’s young.  But, for a bull to stay on the Scharping ranch, he needs to have strong outs that show heart.

“A bull with intensity and heart, a bull with grit, he gets it done, just like a bull rider who has the grit to make the 8 seconds.  I have respect for a bull that is gritty.  But I don’t like lazy bulls.  If a calf is lazy, then I get rid of him.  That’s the way I cull.”

“Bulls need trips to get dialed in.  That’s the way to find out how good they are,” Scharping went on to say.  “If I take my bulls to competitive events, I’m paying entry fees and there’s no guarantee of getting a decent rider.  The bull doesn’t get tested by a weak rider and he develops bad habits from a bad out.  That’s no good.”

So, instead of concentrating on bulls that need outs, Scharping provides bulls for the rodeo circuit.     

“I now have a PRCA stock contractor card,” said Scharping of his current business association.  “I am partnering with Sankey Pro Rodeos, hauling bulls to their events.  I head out in July with around 50 bulls where I’m based in Montana until the end of September.  In a time period of 80 to 90 days, my bulls will have around 500 outs.”

For the upcoming rodeo season, Scharping plans to add some 3 and 4-year-old bulls.

“I look for bulls with promise.  I want bulls that will get the job done.”  Of the programs he buys from, Scharping said, “I buy from breeding programs I know.  They have a good reputation with a proven cow herd.”

Even after 13 years of hard work and a whole lot of changes, Scharping still feels blessed to be in the bucking bull business.  And he’s still passionate about what he does.

“I truly love these animals,” Scharping said of the bucking stock he’s dedicated his life to.  “I offer partnerships so that other people can share in the fun.  If it’s not about fun, then there’s no reason to do it.”