PBR World Champ Kody Lostroh credits his success in gaining the skills to become a champion bull rider, in part, to his commitment to getting on practice bulls.
“Over the course of my career, I got on hundreds and hundreds of practice bulls,”said Lostroh, the 2009 PBR World Champion. “I rode as many practice bulls as I rode in competition.”
Kody Lostroh was the 2009 PBR World Champion bull rider and a ten-time qualifier to the PBR Finals. He’s a $3.2 million winner and is one of the top 10 money earners of all time. He retired from professional bull riding in 2018.
For Lostroh, practice bulls were an essential part of the learning process.
“Back when I was younger and learning, there were a lot of bulls that needed bucking. It was easy to find practice bulls to hone my skills,” Lostroh told us. “I got bucked off of some. But I could get bulls that I could stay on to work on my technique.”
Lostroh found every opportunity he could to ride practice bulls. If he heard of a bull riding going on, he made it his business to be there.
“If there were any bulls to be bucked, me and my buddy would be there. We used to say there couldn’t be a bull riding without us,” laughed Lostroh. “We sought them out. We just wanted to get on bulls.”
At the age of 18, Lostroh turned pro and started out on what was to become a championship journey. If anything, working on practice bulls became even more important.
“Taking the time to learn how to ride a bull well is essential to the success of a bull rider. Without good practice bulls, there will be less and less successful bull riders.”
“In my pro career, I would seek out bulls that had what I needed to practice. And I’d work on good timing,” explained Lostroh. “The level of practice bull a rider needs to get on to improve their technique is all relative. In my opinion, a rider needs to know the maximum bull he’s capable of riding and practice on a bull who scores several points lower.”
ProRodeo Hall of Fame Bull Rider Cody Custer truly believes in the worth of riding practice bulls. “Throughout my entire career I continued to reinforce my foundation by staying with the strategy I learned from my dad of practicing on a lot of lower level bulls so my confidence remained high and my timing and reflexes were sharp. When I got to an event with higher level stock I was prepared and confident because of my strategy and my preparation during the week.” Read Cody Custer’s article CODY CUSTER TALKS BULL RIDING – THE PROCESS here: https://buckingstocktalk.com/cody-custer-talks-bull-riding-the-process/
“Practice is not competition. If a bull rider can handle a 21 point bull, then his practice bulls should be 18 or 19 point bulls,” he continued. “And a young kid needs even less.”
Over the course of his career in the PBR, Lostroh managed his riding to level off in a balance between getting on practice bulls and riding in bull riding events.
“I’ve ridden thousands of competition bulls and I’ve ridden just as many practice bulls,” Lostroh told us of the regimen that helped him to his 10 trips to the PBR Finals. “At the beginning, I was getting on 7 or 8 practice bulls a week. But as I went to more competitions and got on more competition bulls, the number of practice bulls I got on each week got smaller.”
Lostroh considers practice bulls to be essential to the sport of bull riding. Practice bulls allow young riders to gain essential skills to enter the professional ranks. And for those in the sport, practice bulls provide riders with the opportunity to hone their technique and to work on what might need fixing.
But finding practice bulls is becoming more difficult. Since 2009, when Lostroh won the PBR World Championship, the bulls bucking at the top levels have been bred for extreme athleticism. Today, a rider can expect to draw a bull in a PBR final round that will put up a bull score of at least 42 plus points, with 44 plus being a common score for final round bulls.
As a dedicated bucking bull breeder, stock contractor and advocate for the sport of bull riding, Lostroh considers the availability of practice bulls as essential to maintaining healthy numbers in the professional bull riding ranks.
“The bucking bulls of today are more athletic and they require a lot of skill to ride. What used to be an average bull that would make a good practice bull isn’t worth keeping in today’s industry. No one makes money hauling that kind of bull and it costs the same to keep that one bull as it does to keep a good one,” Lostroh said about the situation.
“Bulls who have come to the end of their career can make good practice bulls. They’re more seasoned and less reactionary,” he continued, offering a solution to the problem of finding good practice bulls. “The old timers don’t have that much buck left in them so riders can hone their technique and practice their timing.”
Bulls who have been retired from competition can offer riders the opportunity to practice on an experienced bull.
Bull ridings have also taken on a different tone from when Lostroh was learning to ride. A good share of people looking for riders to test their young bulls have stock that require a higher level of riding talent to stay on than a decade and a half ago.
“People don’t tend to keep the lower level bulls around that are the good type to practice on,” explained Lostroh. “The young bulls they are bucking are athletic and more challenging to ride and aren’t good bulls to learn on.”
Young riders often feel it’s not worth it to go to a bull riding with bulls they have no chance of riding. This is bad for the riders and for the bull people as well. Riders don’t get practice and bulls don’t get tested.
Lostroh has some thoughts about how to make it worthwhile to keep practice bulls available for bull riders to get on.
“Riders paying to get on practice bulls will help pay the cost of feeding those bulls. A person might consider keeping practice bulls around if their keep is covered,” Lostroh said. “If there is a group of riders who want to practice regularly, talk to people and work it out to pay regularly to help feed those bulls.
As for getting young bulls ridden, Lostroh suggests maybe it’s a matter of give and take. And it can be a win-win situation.
“If there are practice bulls to ride, riders might be more likely to show up to a bull riding. Then, once they’ve ridden the practice bulls, have the riders get on the bulls needing to be tested,” offered Lostroh. “The riders get to practice and they also get to challenge themselves on a more athletic bull. And the young bulls get riders on their backs.”
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.
