Good cowboys, expert broncs: Basin family supplies the horses that make the rodeo buck

Hundreds of spectators gathered Memorial Day weekend for the Coulee City PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) Last Stand Rodeo. As the cowboy’s name quaked from the stadium speakers, the audience’s eyes latched onto the competitor – just as he did the bronc – in anticipation. Did he prepare enough? Is his attitude right? Can he perform?

For rodeo stock contractor Chad Hutsell of Flying Five and Big Bend Rodeo Company, he’s doing this exact same thing – but for the bronc.

With headquarters near Ritzville and Central Ferry, Flying Five/Big Bend has won 11 PRCA gold buckles for Outstanding Bucking Stock of the year. Its horses have made the top professional rodeo rankings numerous times and have been inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.

In 2013, its horse, Spring Planting, won the Calgary Stampede’s Worley Parson’s Trophy Champion Saddle Bronc award, the first U.S. horse to do this in 30 years.

The stock competes alongside the cowboys, Hutsell said. It’s no different at all. As the judges keep score of the contestants, Hutsell’s keeping his own score of his animals.

Memorial Day, he had younger stock competing for the first time, he said. By Sunday, he knows if they’ll move onto the top professional rodeos or stay in the local circuit. It’s just like baseball, he said. These animals compete in the little leagues all the way to the all-star team.

“I go to other rodeos besides this one where I have the top 15 in the world at,” he said. “Here it’s more of our circuit kids, so I try to place the stock accordingly. But this is where the stock learns, too, the younger stuff on where they need to be placed.”

Recently, Hutsell was in Reno at the “wildest, richest rodeo in the west” with his A-squad. He spent Memorial Day weekend scouting for which animals would make the cut.

A lot of factors go into this decision, he said.

“When we get to the NFR (National Finals Rodeo), the cowboys are always talking about how it’s a drawing contest; well, it’s the same way for the stock contractors,” he said. “There’s certain cowboys you don’t want on certain horses, because they aren’t going to make them look as good.”

Hutsell’s family has been doing this since the 1920s, he said. It started with his great-grandfather Lew Hutsell who had a ranch in Telford.

Back in those days, the crew of cowboys trailed a team of outlaw horses from Davenport to Wilbur for the first rodeo of the season, he said. From there, they would hit the rodeo circuit in Soap Lake, Ephrata, Moses Lake, Lind, Ritzville, Williams Lake and then Spokane for the end of the season.

When he says they trailed them, that’s exactly what he means – like the Wild West.

“No semis,” he said. “You trailed them. All the crew was on horseback.”

It was a whole different game back in those days, he said. Lew would take the horses to farms along the way to feed, water and rest. When the horses’ feet were sore, the cowboys blocked off an alleyway, threw the horses to the ground and tacked shoes on them, he said.

This was before they were breeding them to buck, too, he said. Back then, they were using halter-broke saddle and plow horses.

Hutsell’s father Don and business partner Sonney Riley launched the “Born to Buck” breeding program in 1969, starting to breed horses for bucking traits, he said. Since, the animals that have come from this program have proven themselves to be outstanding athletes throughout the nation, he said.

This past year, for a stock contractor, has been one of the strangest, Hutsell said.

“It’s been miserable, to tell you the honest truth,” he said.

In an ongoing cycle of rodeo preparation his entire life, he didn’t anticipate what work it would be starting from scratch, he said. There’s a ton of logistics to figure out and many literal moving parts – trucks, crew, animals – all to be prepared and in the right place at the right time, he said.

The Last Stand Rodeo was a new beginning, he said, and a great feeling.

“It’s nice to be out on the road and see people out, not masked up, enjoying life like how it’s supposed to be, and I think we learned a lot from it as far as I’m concerned,” Hutsell said. “Life is pretty precious, and when you have just a little bit taken away from you, you don’t realize how much you really miss it.”