Sports Psychology Comes to PBR, Bulls Included

Before Cool Whip became the Joe DiMaggio of PBR with the longest consecutive buck-off streak in the sport’s history – 44 wins and counting – he nearly blew a chance at a Hall of Fame career.

The bull was competing at the 2020 ABBI World Finals in Las Vegas. As a front runner at the futurity world championship – a bucking competition placing a 15-pound dummy box on the back of young 2-year-old bull – he had yet to feel a human rider on his back.

For the last out deciding the champion, Staci Addison, who co-owns Cool Whip with her partner Tommy Julian and D&H Cattle Co., was flanking him. After she put the soft training rope around his haunches, the big bovine with a coat the color of hot desert sand did something he’d never done before. He laid down in the bucking chute.

This was completely out of character. Sure, Cool Whip is gentle, craves scratches, and loves kids. But he always knew when it was time to go to work. 

The bucking chute to this bull had been like the phone booth to Clark Kent. Until now.

On the flank board, Addison moved over to Cool Whip’s head. She leaned into the gate and sternly said, “Cool Whip! What are you doing? We’ve been working all year for this! Get up, it’s time to work!”

Before cracking a joke about an earnest woman reasoning with a four-legged assemblage of taut muscles with two Louisville sluggers pointing from his head, fully expecting comprehension and compliance, factor this in: Addison regularly sings “You Are My Sunshine” to Cool Whip. She shows him game tape – video on her phone of his outs. Only the good ones, though; she wants to build his confidence. She calls him “sweet pea” and “big boy” and “stud muffin.” Before every event, she reminds Cool Whip he’s a gentleman.

“Do your best,” she tells him. “Whatever happens, I love you.”

So, this was far from Addison’s first conversation with Cool Whip. She gets that he may not understand every word. But she knows he feels her tone.

Cool Whip stood up to get down to business.

The gate swung open, he did his job, and was judged best overall, becoming the 2020 Cowgirl Futurity World Champion. 

When fully developed, Cool Whip would begin accepting riders on his back. Four years later, there is not a more reliably difficult bull on the planet for the world’s top cowboys to try to last eight seconds on. He has bucked off 61 of 62 riders he’s faced, scored a very high 46 points nine times.