Gary Mihoces
October 18, 2007
That stance is welcomed by Jerry Nelson, CEO of Frontier Rodeo Co. of Winnie, Texas, which provides bulls to the PBR and other bull riding circuits.
"I think there's a lot of abuse of steroids in the industry. If they don't fix it, it's going to be something that comes back and bites them in the butt," Nelson says.
The PBR, gearing up for its World Finals Oct. 25-Nov. 4 in Las Vegas, has no policy on steroids and bulls.
"There's no policy at this point because until we heard — we actually heard about it four-five months ago — we just never envisioned our sport would ever come to that," says Bernard, CEO since 1995.
The biggest bulls weigh a ton or more. The PBR says the average bull is about 1,600-1,700 pounds, while the typical cowboy weighs 140-160 pounds. The typical cowboys are 140-160-pound bundles of fast-twitch muscle and reflexes."We won't test the riders for anything," Bernard says. "We feel that our guys are quality people, and you don't want to bulk up with muscle in our sport. You want that twitch reflex."
Nelson says steroid use is out there. He tried it the late '90s on two bulls who couldn't gain weight.
"One of them, it made him sterile. The other one it just made him an idiot to deal with. We'd used it for about six months and then said (no more) of that," Nelson says.
As with humans, concerns about steroids and bulls include competitive balance, health risks and even mood swings such as 'roid rage.
Nelson says he can spot a bull on steroids: "They're just like human beings on drugs with their eyes about to pop out of their heads, wild-eyed idiots, and I just don't think it's good for business."
Or the bulls' health.
"It eventually shuts their system down. It just causes kidney failures and everything else," Nelson says.
Beyond bucking, there is money in breeding. At auction last year in Las Vegas, two bull embryos sold for $14,000 each. A single "straw" of semen from a top bull can go for $5,000.
There also are bigger rewards. In Las Vegas, the top-scoring bull in a competition for developing 3-4-year-old bulls will win $250,000.
"They get to compete with their bulls for a lot of money. And any time you have that … it seems to me that not far behind are going to be the cheaters," says Ty Murray, president of the PBR and a Rodeo Hall of Famer who supports testing. "We want to stay ahead of the curve, without a doubt."
Cody Lambert, PBR vice president and livestock director, says his group is working with veterinarians to develop the testing.
"We will not tolerate anything that could hurt the bull or that could hurt the sport," Lambert says.
Nelson also provides bucking horses to rodeos.
"I haven't seen anybody give steroids to a bucking horse," he says. "The competition hasn't quite gained national attention in the rodeo or bucking horse business as it has in the bull business."
In thoroughbred racing, use of veterinary steroids remains largely unregulated. Only a few states have steroid regulations for race horses.
The PBR aims to regulate itself.
"It's no different than pro football," Nelson says. "The bigger the money, the more the need to compete."
Bernard and other PBR officials say they're committed to testing.
"Whenever there gets to be a lot of money in any sport, we find that there are people that want to do things to have an edge," Bernard says.
"We're not investigating what happened in the past. What we're doing right now is creating a drug policy. And we're hoping to have it implemented by the first of January, where the top bulls in the country at each event will be tested."
Nelson says steroid use with bulls goes back a decade or more.
"I said something about it back in '98 or '99 and everybody thought I was full of (it)," he says.
"So I just kept my mouth shut and went on about my business," he says. "I don't think I had to do it in my program with our genetics and breeding to compete, and I think we've proven that."
He says he's renewed his alarm to the PBR in recent months.
"I've seen (steroid use). I've seen it with my own eyes," Nelson says. "It does the same thing to an animal that it does to human beings. It makes them more aggressive. It will take one that normally weighs 1,300 pounds and get him to weighing 1,550 of muscle mass."
He adds, "I think you see a lot of bulls in the industry getting lame. They put so much muscle mass on that when they go to use it, they tear or rip something."
Nelson said he's purchased bulls and found out later they were on steroids. "A month or so after I own them, you can tell they're losing weight," he says. "They're going through withdrawal."
