THE BULL CHUTER
by Nancy Standlee, Contributing Writer
Tim Cox from Pisgah, Alabama, has a passion about training rodeo bulls. From the time they are 
unloaded and put in the pen until the owner hauls them home, Tim will know everything there is to know about the bull. Often times, Tim will video the unloading process to record how the bull runs off the trailer or tries to jump off the ramp and is running wild in the pen. Thirty to forty-five days later when the owner picks him up, Tim has taught the bull to calmly walk up the ramp and into the trailer and he will walk in behind him. This is proof positive that the young bull has been preconditioned and knows exactly what is expected of him during the loading and unloading process.
As with any young athlete, repetition is the key in any training program. The optimum age to precondition a potential rodeo bull is a three or four year old bovine. A bull that is too much older than four years of age has habits that are a lot harder to modify and are not as likely to respond to the preconditioning techniques that will make him a success in the rodeo arena.
Along with repetitions, Tim also feeds the animals a special feed that he has milled in a grist mill there in his home town. This is a feed that is milled to Tim’s exact specifications, and Tim has not sold or given the ratio of ingredients to anyone else. Tim said that he got the recipe from Tony Sharp, a man that knows the bucking bull industry inside and out. This feed will ensure maximum muscle growth and endurance for these animal athletes.
Another part of the preconditioning program is to teach the bull to stand in the bucking chute while the cowboy mounts and gets his rope set. Anybody that has ever been to or watched bull riding on TV has seen that wild eyed bull try to lurch or buck the cowboy off in the chute. This is a very dangerous scenario for the cowboys, and it holds up the entire process for the other contestants. The cowboy contestants and the event promoters do not like to deal with bulls those consistently shows this behavior trait and are soon turned out to pasture.
For most of us bull riding fans, we had no idea that a bucking bull is also trained to leave the arena with as much finesse as he demonstrates with his bucking abilities. At Tim’s training arena, he teaches the bulls to exit to the right or the left or down the center, as all arenas are not set up exactly the same. This preconditioning process teaches the bull not to be one-dimensional and to scope out the exit as he moves away from the cowboy while keeping the action going at the same time.
When asked if genetics play a big role when he accepts a young bull into his preconditioning program, Tim said that is not a guarantee that the bull is going to be the next NFR or PBR world champion, and he is not as interested in the lineage as he is in the heart of the young bull.
Yes, Tim Cox is passionate about his preconditioning bucking bull business. He has thousands of pages of notes that he has taken on his potential rodeo stars and numerous photographs to document their progress. Back in the day, Tim was an aspiring young bull rider himself and that gave him the opportunity to travel and learn by some of the best the sport had to offer. Not only is Tim a talker, but more importantly, he is a listener and gives his mentors credit for the things that he has learned throughout the years.
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