Partnerships’ Variety Garners Success in the Bucking Stock Industry #2
by Terry Lidral
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D&H Cattle Company is partnered with Powder River Rodeo stock contractors to provide bucking bulls for Powder River Rodeo’s PRCA events. This partnership allows Powder River Rodeo to haul the highest caliber of bucking bulls as well as bucking horses to the events they produce. They have been partners since 2005.
“Before we partnered with the Page’s, we were breeding bulls as well as bucking horses to haul to the rodeos we produced,” said Lori Franzen who owns and manages Power River Rodeo with her husband Hank. “It split our focus away from breeding the horses that are our passion. We had a world class bucking horse program and we were having to put effort into bringing the bucking bull program up to the level of our horses.”
The Franzen’s have one of the best bucking horse programs in the business and the Pages have the premiere bucking bull program in the world. It made sense to the Franzen’s to partner with the Pages for bulls and refocus their breeding efforts on their bucking horse program.
Powder River Rodeo’s stallion Two Buck Chuck was a co-star in the Ariat film Unbroken. The film showed off the bronc’s great athletic talent and his stunning good looks. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvLktfQpc5o
“Dillon Page has spent 40 years fine tuning his breeding program and 90 percent of what he raises bucks. The consistent quality of his bulls is almost unimaginable. By creating a partnership with the Pages, we had become able to promise the rodeo committees that we would be providing the very best set of bulls,” Franzen explained about one of the major benefits of joining forces.
The partnership with Powder River Rodeo provides benefits for the Pages as well. PRCA has events year-round where the PBR has a down time. By being on the Powder River Rodeo truck on the PBR off-season, the Pages’ bulls stay in top shape for when the new PBR season begins.
“By partnering with us, the Pages are able to keep their bulls in performance shape during the PBR off season,” Franzen told us. “It also provides a chance for their younger bulls to be introduced to the demands of being hauled to and bucking at bull riding events.
“This partnership was a defining moment that paved the way for other stock contractors to do the same. Now this kind of partnership is popular in the rodeo world,” she went on to say.
D&H Cattle Company, run by Dillon and H.D. Page, sets the standard for the bucking bull business. Their breeding program touts the likes of great World Champion bucking bulls including 32Y Bruiser, 58X Long John and Chiseled. D&H Cattle Company consistently produces winners that compete at the futurity and classic bull level. Dillon and H.D. Page are 7-time Stock Contractors of the Year.
Powder River Rodeo has been raising top tier bucking horses for over 3 decades. Their breeding program includes the PRCA Hall of Fame inductee bucking horse Khadafy Skoal, 2-time World Champion Miss Congeniality and World Champion Craig At Midnight. Hank and Lori Franzen won PRCA’s 2019 Remuda Award for the best pen of bucking horses, all of which they raise. The Franzen’s have been nominated 11-times for PRCA Stock Contractor of the Year.
Read more about Powder River Rodeo’s breeding program here: https://buckingstocktalk.com/powder-river-rodeo-broncs-a-cut-above/
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.
