What makes a bull rider?
An early start with animals on the farm got Justin McBride on the path to two world championships
What makes a bull rider?

SAYRE — Some kids play video games.

Others read books or play sports or watch TV.

Justin McBride rode animals.

Didn't matter what it was either. Family dog. Shetland pony. Little calves. Dwarf bulls.

"Whatever I could get to hold still long enough to let me get on,” McBride said.

Years later, the only thing that's changed is the size of the animal.

McBride now rides 2,000-pound bulls, and he rides them better than anybody in the world. He has won the Professional Bull Riders' world championship two of the past three seasons, breaking all sorts of records for wins and earnings. He pushed his career earnings to nearly $5 million.

But for shoulder surgery sidelining him until this summer, including this weekend's Copenhagen Bull Riding Challengers Tour Championship in Oklahoma City, McBride would be building on his legend.

How did he manage to wrangle the world of bull riding?

McBride is part tough guy, part technician.

He has suffered too many injuries to count. The rods and pins and bolts in his body would be enough to start a hardware store, but he's ridden through hurt. Heartbreak, too. McBride came oh-so close before finally winning that first world title in 2005.

Then, there's the way he rides. At only 5-foot-8, 140 pounds, he has great balance but doesn't try to hold the bulls with his feet or muscle them around.

"He just kind of floats on top of 'em,” bull riding buddy J.W. Hart said.

Still, all of that doesn't tell the whole story. To understand how Justin McBride became the world's best bull rider, head west until you're almost to Texas, then go south out of Sayre until the paved roads become gravel. This is the area where his mother grew up, where his parents settled and he eventually followed.

Past the cattle pens and the sorting chutes, the unbridled horses and the tack room in the red corrugated metal barn, you'll find McBride on his ranch and in his element.

Then, you'll know — he was born to be a bull rider.

If you get bucked off, get right back on.

McBride's father would put both of his boys — Cooper and Justin — on the family's Shetland pony. A breed known for its mean streak, that horse would buck the boys off time and again. But every time, Jim McBride made them climb back on and try again.

"There wasn't any time for whining,” Lori McBride said.

That's the way the McBrides raised their boys. They had to be tough because that's how life was.

Jim worked as a hired hand on ranches tending cattle. The hours were long, the chores endless, the paychecks minimal.

When Justin was 7 years old, Jim moved the family from Texas to a ranch in the Nebraska panhandle. It was an hour's drive from the closest town and four hours from Rapid City, S.D. For a year, the boys attended a country school with only eight students. Justin rode his black and white Paint horse to school most days.

"I grew up in a really, really desolate, isolated place,” McBride said, "and a lot of people would think, ‘Oh, my God. That had to be so boring.'

"I loved it.”

McBride spent most of his free time with his dad. There was always something to do. Cows to feed. Fence to mend. Calves to brand.

His father might have been slim and small in stature, but McBride saw him as larger than life.

"I thought my dad was John Wayne,” McBride said, "and I followed him around everywhere all day every day.”

Along the way, he saw how hard his dad worked, the endless hours and the exhausting chores that come on a ranch. Hauling hay in the winter. Birthing calves in the snow. He saw, too, the way his dad went about his business. Jim McBride was diligent, thorough, meticulous.

He had pride in everything he did.

All of that taught McBride two more lessons — he never wanted to have to work that hard and bull riding might be his means to that end.

"Ladies and gentlemen,” ring announcers would bellow, "this little boy's going to be very, very famous some day.”

McBride thrived on that attention. He won a few hundred dollars every summer going when he was in elementary school. By the time he was in high school, he was racking up $8,000 to $10,000 a year at amateur rodeos.

McBride paid not only for the trips but also for his school clothes and supplies. He bought his first vehicle — a 1967 Ford pickup — when he was only 13.

Most of his wins growing up were in bareback riding, but he knew bull riding would be his future.

"There wasn't enough money in bareback riding he said,” his mother remembered. "He was going to do this for a livin', because he didn't want to work.”

He tried other sports, football and wrestling among them, and he had success. He made state wrestling for his high school in tiny Mullen, Neb., the only town in the entire county.

Still, nothing connected with him like bull riding. He studied it, dissected it and learned everything he could about it. He worked with his father, who'd been a bull rider in his earlier days, and he wore out any bull riding video he could find.

McBride knew he wanted to be a professional bull rider.

Had he not been 17 years old when he graduated in 1997 — his Mullen High class numbered 24 — he'd have gone straight onto the PBR tour. Because he needed to be 18 to have a tour card, he went to UNLV on a rodeo scholarship. He stayed only a year.

McBride then moved to Fort Collins, Colo., where childhood buddy John Howell was playing football at Colorado State. Howell also worked part-time at a rock quarry and offered to help McBride get work there.

McBride figured he'd never need it.

"My entire life, I'd always won,” he said. "All of a sudden, I was a real little fish in the ocean.”

He struggled to stay afloat. He wasn't winning. He wasn't even qualifying. Weeks, then months went by without a check.

McBride found himself spending more and more time working at the rock quarry.

"The gravel pit might have saved my career,” he said. "I hated working so much.”

McBride kept going to Challenger Tour events, and by March 1999, McBride finally qualified for a couple of PBR events, including one in Odessa, Texas.

His first bull, Panhandle Slim, had been voted the world's best bull the year before. McBride rode him. His next bull, Hollywood, had bucked off the legendary Ty Murray five or six times. McBride rode him.

That weekend, McBride won his first event.

He's been winning ever since.

Riding last August in Mexico, Justin McBride got bucked off inside of the animal's spin. His hand still in the rope, McBride couldn't get away quickly, and when Gnash spun around, his horn hit McBride in the hand.

The impact knocked out his shoulder.

For the next couple days, McBride worried that his season might be finished. Not until he returned to the States and underwent an MRI did he learn his fate.

Yes, the shoulder was bad, but yes, he could ride.

"You can rehab it and finish out the year,” PBR doctor Tandy Freeman told him. "If it falls out again during the course of this year, then you're done.”

McBride spent the next three weeks trying to strengthen his shoulder and restore the motion in it. Never in his entire career had he made excuses.

"And I wasn't gonna start last year,” he said.

So, with his shoulder heavily taped, he returned not only to competition but also to form. McBride won his first event back in Greensboro, N.C., a record eighth regular-season victory that pushed his lead in the points race to almost 2,000.

He never looked back.

In November at the PBR World Finals in Las Vegas, McBride wrapped up his second world title in three years.

"There's probably just a few guys in the world that can ride with a separated shoulder ... and it not terribly affect their riding ability,” said Hart, who's traveled on the bull riding circuit with McBride for years. "When he had his shoulder injury, he literally had to modify the way he rode bulls the rest of the season to be at a competitive level.”

It'd be like Jordan changing the jump shot during the playoffs or Tiger altering the swing during the season.

But to stay on bulls when they spun to the right, McBride had to change his mechanics.

"Instead of raising his left shoulder to make that move, he drops his right shoulder and compensates for it,” Hart said. "It was really something to see. To be able to ride the bulls he rode in the condition he was in was just short of phenomenal.”

McBride said, "All 45 guys on the PBR are really good, but then, you've got something that really separates guys. There's certain guys that are better at winning. For me, it's because I won't ever quit.”

He essentially had four surgeries in one.

He had to wait until last month to begin his rehab, and even now, he's only doing light work with rubber bands. The earliest he can return will be June. Only about eight events will remain when he returns.

And yet, he has his sights set on making the most out of the season.

"There's been people ask me if I thought I could still win a world title going to eight events,” said McBride, who has continued doing extensive PR for the PBR. "For our sport's sake, I hope not because that'd be horrible if I could only go to eight events and win it. There should be no way in hell that should happen.”

His turquoise eyes sparkled.

"But I can still qualify for the finals, and I've never won the aggregate title at the finals.”

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