Champions Awards Professional Bull Riders: Heroes and Legends Tours Statistics

The organization created a breed registry and manages the registration and certification of American Bucking Bulls.

It maintains a genetic DNA database, manages bucking bull pedigrees and encourages the growth of the breed.

People first began to breed cattle specifically to produce bulls that were good at bucking in rodeos in the 1970s.

[2][3] Andrews is a stock contractor who owned Bodacious, a bull infamous for his severe injuries to riders, especially Tuff Hedeman.

Stock contractors started making money from all types of activities, not just bucking them: marketing, futurities, licensing, and breeding.

[5] This shift resulted in duplicity in the breeding business: certain breeders were attempting to scam others by pretending they had young bulls who were the progeny of notable sires such as Oscar, Red Rock, and Pacific Bell, when in fact the heritage of these bulls was not as advertised; this practice resulted in distrust of pedigree claims.

Andrews was sure that "a credible market" required "a way to certify bloodlines", and Tallman proposed the use of DNA parentage testing, which he used in his own breeding program.

[6] The intent was to allow breeders to track the pedigrees of notable bucking bulls, and thus prove parentage of offspring.

"[3]In 1996, Tallman and a partner started Buckers, Inc., a business using DNA testing to verify a bull's parentage.

Bodacious became the test case for this model: "every stock contractor in the business wanted a bull as rank [difficult to ride] as Bodacious—especially if they were certain the calf was a legitimate son."

Then-CEO Randy Bernard at the PBR was so impressed that he bought out Buckers and renamed the company to American Bucking Bull, Inc.

As of 2018, the PBR brings in millions per year in commercial sponsorships and reaches half a billion viewers, establishing bull riding as a mainstream sport.

In search of DNA to document parentage, Rosser mentioned one time that a bull skeleton was dug up to recover a bone fragment.

It was DNA tested and used to prove that a notable bull's calves were sired as stated, showing that the genetic data kept by the registry was of value.

For example, the cow who produced 2009 ABBI World Champion Finals Classic Bull Black Pearl sold in 2011 for $100,000.

[13][14] Prior to the ABBI, the best PBR bulls earned their owners money through a stud career, simply as long as parentage verified.

A good example of a bull that ABBI developed into a successful breeding sire is three-time world champion Bushwacker, owned by Julio Moreno.

Today, the ABBI DNA registry database contains cattle records of over 200,000 individuals, including bulls in the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Australia.

[17] Voodoo Child was also the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) Bucking Bull of the Year in 2007 and 2008.

[18] Following Wilfong was Gene Baker, a former calf roper and the owner of Homestead Genetics, based in Anson, Texas.

[19] The ABBI mostly focuses on recording animals in the American Bucking Bull breed registry.

Cody Lambert, livestock director for the PBR, noted that: There are more good bulls out there than ever before and the ABBI is one of the main reasons for that.

ABBI President Brad Boyd pointed out that, "This first base of 100,000 core DNA'd animals is truly the foundation for the heritage and documented ancestry of future generations of bucking bulls and elite females to come.

ESPN once described Bushwacker as "the baddest body in sports," and suggested that bulls like him garnered more fan appreciation than their riders.