MCCOY RANCH BUILT ON PLUMMER BLOODLINES AND SOLID TRAINING

by Terry Lidral

Denny McCoy has been bucking bulls in competition since before the American Bucking Bull, Inc. was formed in 2003 (ABBI also known as The Registry).  He learned about bucking bulls from one of the most respected bull men in the business.  He’s got decades of experience working with bulls.  And he’s developed some of the best producing genetics in the bucking bull industry.

“I was a good friend of Charlie Plummer,” said McCoy about his association with one of the foundation breeders of the business.  “I went to his rodeos when I was young.   He raised a lot of bulls.  And I was interested in the fact that he was doing that.”

Plummer was one of the first to raise bulls to buck at rodeos.  That was back in the 1960’s.  The idea of building a bucking stock herd appealed to McCoy and he decided he wanted to learn everything he could about it.

McCoy grew up in a rodeo family and went to college where he was a rodeo athlete.  He got into the cattle business after college.  So, being in the bucking bull business came to him naturally.

“I got to know Charlie Plummer really well,” explained McCoy.  “I spent a lot of time picking his brain. I learned all I could from him about raising bucking bulls.

It was in the mid-to-late 80’s that McCoy actually got started on his own program.  And he used Plummer bloodlines to build his foundation herd.

“All my bucking stock go back to original Plummers somewhere.”

 “After Charlie Plummer passed, his wife Rose had a sale.  I had two good friends in the rodeo business by the names of Larry Kephart and Delayne Long.  They helped Rose out with the sale and bought the bulk of the Plummer bucking stock,” said McCoy.

That friendship with Kephart and Long made it possible for McCoy to share the genetics that are currently known as “Original CP.”

“When I got interested in starting my own program, I leased bulls from Kephart to breed from.  And I traded some heifers I raised with Long.  These were “Original CP,” McCoy told of the cattle whose distinctive look has passed on down through the generations.  “Now you’ll hear people say, ‘There’s a CP cow,’ because they look the same way as those original CP bred cattle.”

McCoy’s sons, Jet and Cord also benefited from their father’s friendships.  It was Rose Plummer who started the boys out in the bucking bull business at an early age.

“Rose had some heifers and she gave one each to Cord and Jet.  The boys were real young then.  Those heifers were “Original CP” and one of those heifers was the mother to the PBR bull Coyote Ugly,” McCoy told of his sons’ start in the industry.

For McCoy, a big part of being in the bucking stock industry is bucking his bulls in competition.  And over the years, McCoy has bucked a lot of bulls in competitions at all levels.  It’s been a lot of hard work, and he takes great pride in the program he has built.

“I went to the very first ABBI sanctioned bull competition that was put on in Duncan, Oklahoma.  And I’ve gone to every Heritage event except one.  That year, the only reason I wasn’t there is that I had a triple bypass operation,” he said with a wry chuckle.

“I never competed with one I didn’t raise,” McCoy continued proudly.  “The best one I ever raised was Bells Blue.  He was a contender for the PBR Bucking Bull of the Year two times.  He was runner-up for the Classic Bull of the Year both as a 3 and a 4-year-old, earning the highest score ever in an ABBI Classic event.  It was a 94.75.   He didn’t win the title because I didn’t get him to all the Classic events that year.  There were so many bulls, it was hard to get entered.”

Bells Blue had a stellar career in the PBR.  He was the high marked bull at multiple PBR events.  His record of multiple bull scores in the 45’s, 46’s and even a 47.25 rival those of any bull to have bucked in the PBR.  

“I have guys tell me that Bells Blue was the first bull ever in the PBR to get a score of 47,” McCoy said of his superstar.  “He was something special.”

McCoy has watched bucking bull competition and the bucking bull industry change over the span of time he’s been involved.

“The judging criteria in futurities has changed over the past 15 years,” said McCoy.  “Back in the old days, futurity calves scored high if they spun real fast.”

And back then, futurity calves and PBR bulls were looked at differently.  Today, according to McCoy, competition bulls are all judged on the same criteria.

“Judges have changed what they look for in futurity bulls,” McCoy stated about the sport he knows well.  “Today’s judges look for quick extension and a break over.  The young ones have to have an intensity. The futurity calves now are like a bucking bull.  That’s why a futurity winner goes right on up through the classes.  You seldom have a calf that can’t win in futurities go on up and win at the higher levels.  They have to be bucked and tried at the lower levels.  Of course, there’s always the exception,” he added.

There may be exceptions, but the current super star bulls of the ABBI and PBR are proving McCoy to be right.

“Take our bull Ridin Solo,” McCoy offered as an example.  “That bull was the 2018 ABBI Futurity Champion.”

Ridin Solo, of Sara and Cord McCoy, put up an average bull score of 90.59 as a two-year-old.  And that was based on 22 outs.

“Now, here in 2020 as a 4-year-old, Ridin Solo is leading the ABBI Classic division.  He’s doing the same as he’s always been doing.  And he’s winning,” stated McCoy matter-of-factly.

Over the years, McCoy has raised a whole lot of bulls and he knows that not every bull is a bucker.

“You can breed your 10 best cows, but you’re only going to get a great one when the genes match,” he explained.  “There are certain crosses that work.  Everyone breeds differently.”

There are specific combinations that McCoy warns against.

“It’s pretty hard to breed back a world champion to world champion genetics.  You end up getting the worst of both of them,” he cautioned.

To find the calves in his crop that buck, McCoy starts the process of evaluation shortly after weaning.

“We wean our calves in the fall and start bucking them in January,” McCoy said about the start of his culling process.  “Over the years, we’ve bucked about 100 calves per crop.”

It is McCoy’s belief that you can tell if a bull is going to buck when you get them settled into having a decent trip.

“A real bucker is going to buck,” he told us emphatically.  “On the 2^nd or 3^rd time with the dummy, we take the 10 best calves out of the bunch.  You could buck them 20 times and those 10 would still be the best calves.  If a calf doesn’t buck, I don’t fool with him.”

As far as working with young bulls, McCoy treats each one as an individual.

“Usually a calf will tell you what you need to do,” explained McCoy.  “You need to get to know your calves.  If he already stands gentle in the chute, then don’t bother with running him through.  The ones with problems you have to sort off and give them special attention.”

One of the most common problems McCoy finds himself working with is wild chute behavior.

“You have to be careful when you’re bucking young bulls.  So many of them have problems in the chute,” warned McCoy.  “A young calf is like a colt.  If a colt bites you and you don’t correct it, then that colt will always bite.  If a young calf bucks in the chute and you don’t correct it, that calf will always behave badly in the chute.”

McCoy is especially careful with how he bucks his calves away from competition.

“Try to be extremely careful at home bucking your bulls.  They pick up bad habits if you let them and then you have to fix it.” 

Bad habits in competition hurt a bull’s performance and McCoy has developed some ways of eliminating the problems.  His processes need time and patience.  And letting a bull know what he did was good.

“If a bull is bad in the chute, put him in and make him stand right.  It takes a lot of rope over the top.” said McCoy.  “I had a 4-year-old bull come to me that they couldn’t get out of the chute.  He’d jump up in the chute and turn himself upside down.  It took me hours to get that bull to stand correctly but I did it.”

According to McCoy, if a bull develops a problem, it may never completely go away.

“A bull can be doing good and then all of a sudden he’s got the bad habit back.  Then you have to work with him all over again,” McCoy told us about how some bulls are.  “You never get done training one like that.  We have a bull that bucks in the PBR that has been doing good and then just went back to being crazy.  We’ve been working with him in the chute at home and it’s taken a lot of time to calm him down.  A bull needs to be consistent.”

Training a calf to do things the right way can make for consistency and prevent having to deal with problems later.   

“Sometimes a calf comes so hard out of the chute that he hits his head.  That can be fixed with a 2 X 6,” McCoy told us.  “Put the 2 X 6 right in front of the chute.  Then run the bull in and make him hop over the board.  Keep doing this until he jumps out and then bucks once he’s away from the chute.  They’ll pick up that habit and do it right in competition.”

Sometimes a calf can try so hard that he bucks himself right off his feet.

“Bucking calves have been bred so long to turn back, it comes naturally,” McCoy told us.  “As far as spin, you can fix that.  Often, the more you buck them the closer to the gate they’ll buck.  Just keep bucking them.  Nowadays, calves are like a name brand.  But sometimes their kick and intensity can go too far” he continued.  “I had a calf by the name of Scratch Cat Fever that had trouble standing up he was trying so hard.  He jumped so high that he fell down.  I ended up having to buck him the Friday before a competition to take the edge off when he was real fresh.  He had to be tired to buck well in competition.  Then there are those bulls that need to rest before they compete.  It’s important to get to know your bull so you’ll know what they need.”

The best way to get to know your bulls is to buck them.  And, in McCoy’s opinion, you can’t buck your bulls too much.

“You’ve got to buck your bull to know him.  We don’t worry about bucking them too much.  We worry that we can’t buck them enough.  You can never buck them too much,” stated McCoy strongly.  “Buck them enough that you’re confident in their ability.  If they buck 4 or 5 times in a row, then they might make a good futurity calf.”

McCoy has some advice about evaluating a bull as a futurity prospect. 

“For those who are novices in the business or just want to know how a futurity bull is judged, go watch an event,” McCoy suggested.  “Go to judging clinics and learn how judges score bulls.  Watch an event and score the bulls yourself.  Then, check your scores against the judges’ scores.  See what judges look for.”

As far as learning the business, McCoy offers the prospect of partnership.

“If you’re green in the business and want to get in, get involved in a partnership.  You can buy in and it’s a start.  Then you can figure out how the business works.”