Rodeo’s long-term outlook matters not only to those who directly organize or compete in events, but also to the specialized livestock sector that caters to the industry.

“It’s big business in the United States,” said Matt Scharping, a bull breeder near Arlington, Minn.

Over the past half-century, livestock producers have increasingly focused on breeding bucking horses and bulls who thrive in rodeo competitions.

“At this point, bucking horses are basically their own breed,” said Wade Sankey, a breeder near Joliet, Mont. “Nobody’s followed a true genetic line.”

Bucking bulls are their own registered breed of cattle, which has emerged from combining various lineages to emphasize athleticism.

“They’ve taken traits from many breeds of cattle to create the bucking bull,” Scharping said. “They don’t gain weight fast like beef cattle or produce much milk like dairy cattle. These are animals bred to be athletes.”

Younger bulls are vetted in competitions in which they buck without riders, where elite animals can win prizes of up to $250,000, he said. The best performers go on to compete in rodeos and bull-riding events.

“It’s more of a marketing deal at that point,” Scharping said, with the most famous bulls earning top dollar for their semen.

Ranchers once relegated certain animals to rodeos because they were too unruly and boisterous to be useful for conventional agricultural purposes, experts say.

Rather than depend on unpredictable cast-offs, modern rodeo organizers can now rely on horses and bulls with a lineage proven to ensure vigor.

In some cases, experts say the breeders have actually been too effective.

“We are raising bulls that buck so good that we don’t have bull riders that can ride them anymore,” joked John Growney, a former bull rider and longtime stock contractor from Red Bluff, Calif.

Stock contractors breed and raise horses and bulls, which rodeo organizers hire to perform at their events around the country. Earnings depend on the quality of a contractor’s animals.

“As a rodeo company, you’re only as good as the bulls and horses you own,” Growney said. “You’re always trying to build that team up.”

Bucking horses are more commonly raised by professional breeders, while many bulls are also bred by hobbyists who sell them to stock contractors, experts say.

Breeding exceptional bucking animals is akin to mining for diamonds, said Drew Blessinger, a stock contractor from Emmett, Idaho. It takes years and many offspring to find specimens suitable for competition.

“I don’t know anyone who can do it cheap,” he said. “Pretty quick, you’ve got so many mouths to feed, you’re working for them, they’re not working for you.”

Still, the rodeo livestock niche is affordable compared to the race horse industry, which is dominated by expensive, investor-backed animals, Sankey said.

“Rodeo typically doesn’t have that. It’s family ranch dynamics,” he said. “Most people in rodeo come from rodeo. It’s a generational thing.”