Jason Dittman reveals how to raise a bucking bull champion ahead of the PBR grand finals

Jason Dittman has produced many champion bucking bulls for events like the PBR grand finals. Read how he does it:

PBR Finals at the Townsville Entertainment Centre. Bull contractor Jason Dittman puts in a lot of work to prepare his bucking bulls. Picture: Evan Morgan

When bull contractor Jason Dittman works behind the chutes at the Professional Bull Riders grand final in Townsville this weekend, he does not see simple animals to control or money to make.

He sees his boys, professional athletes, and his entire lifestyle.

“If you want something bad enough and you love it, you’ll keep doing it, and yeah, we love it,” Mr Dittman said.

The Bloomsbury based contractor is the father to Cowboys young gun Cohen Dittman, and pushes him to “win at everything we do”.

His bulls are not going to listen to the same advice, but what he does do is take them jogging for more than six kilometres a day while feeding them prime nutrition to develop their muscles and fitness.

Legendary bullrider Troy Dunn, who is the only Australian to win the PBR world championship. Dunn lived “up the road” from Jason Dittman and inspired him to get into bull contracting.

But he got attached.

“They’re like my kids, we’re with them every day, we feed them every day.

“We had one die the other day, it was probably one of the worst days of my life.”

Mr Dittman referred to champion bull Fully Locked and Loaded, which he had bought from cowboy Troy Dunn, the only Australian to win the PBR world championship.

Mr Dittman planned to taxidermize the bull to keep in his private bar.

Dunn was the reason Mr Dittman started contracting for PBR.

After trying out bullriding and not being good at it, he bought four bulls from Dunn and now his stock has grown to 140.

A bull rider is only credited half the score in an eight second ride, with the bull’s efforts also taken equally into account.

Mr Dittman is confident in his bulls’ performance but even then it came down to the night.

“It’s like a boxer, he can have an off night and get knocked out,” he said.

He decides the names of his prize bulls over a few beers with his family and friends.

Together they come up with names like Cattle King Boogers Beach, Pretty Boy, Volatile, Pandemic, and Roid Rage.

“You’re having a bet looking at horse races … we see a name or something on a truck … we see a body builder, ‘yeah, look at the size of him, what if we call him Roid Rage?’

Professional Bull Riders chief executive Sean Gleason said while the United States was ahead when it came to bucking bulls, Australian bulls were evolving faster than it had taken for the US.

“The reason we run the tour over here not only to put the best riders on the best bulls in Australia … is to really cultivate sport in other territories and feed more bull riders into the ecosystem,” he said.

“If you make it to the US you know their careers while they’re fairly short … if you’re at the top of the game, you’re gonna make seven or eight, maybe even $10 million in the course of a year so it’s worth it for the good ones that have the talent to give up their day job and chase bull riding as a career.”

Originally published as Jason Dittman reveals how to raise a bucking bull champion ahead of the PBR grand finals