Shrek, the largest bull at the Lazy HK Bar Ranch, takes a break after finishing his nightly meal of 8-pounds on grain on Monday evening at the ranch in Silver Creek. Shrek weighs in at 2,100-pounds.
This year Beau Shelton will attend the Southwest Washington Fair with a stable full of bulls. Shelton and his wife, Courtney, work at his grandparents’ ranch, Lazy HK Bar Rodeo Company in Silver Creek. Lazy HK is a stock contractor that provides animals for bull riding competitions and rodeos throughout the region. This month, Lazy HK will supply 20 bulls to the Professional Bull Riders’ (PBR) and Southwest Washington Rodeo Association’s competition, 2013 South Sound Bull Bash. The event takes place at the Lewis County Fairgrounds grandstand on Thursday, August 15 at 7 p.m.
The Bull Bash will feature 30 bull riders vying for prize money by riding a bull in style while Lazy HK’s animals do everything in their power to buck them off. The competition will feature two rounds, with the most challenging bulls set for the second (short) round.
“The short round animals are really good bulls,” Shelton says. “They’re like the bulls you’d see on television.”
The good bulls, according to Shelton, are the ones that buck the hardest, jump the highest, and change directions with body rolls. Lazy HK begins bucking the bulls when they are about a year old by hooking a weighted box onto their back. When the bull bucks, the box releases.
While Lazy HK only bucks the bulls once a year for the first three years of their life, Shelton says he can tell pretty early on which bulls will be the best for competitions. When the bulls are about three years old, they get a rider. Shelton takes them to rodeos and competitions when they are four. The best bulls will make the rodeo circuit, while the less successful bulls may be used for practice and junior rodeos.
Occasionally bulls are given the year off to breed in order to keep stock strong. Much like racehorses, the best rodeo bulls are a result of careful breeding. Top bulls are registered in a manner similar to thoroughbreds in order to assure bloodlines.
Bulls live about 20 years. Currently, Lazy HK has three retired bulls, as well as 40 competition/breeding bulls, 30 cows, and a number of calves, totaling about 130 animals. Once they retire the bulls, Lazy HK keeps them on as pets.
“We get attached to them,” Shelton notes. “They really aren’t the dangerous terrors people make them out to be. I have one bull now that, if I don’t go out and scratch him every day with his grain, he’ll stand at the fence and beller at me.”
Shelton’s grandparents, Harlan and Chris Knowles, started the Lazy HK business in 1969. Shelton has been working on his grandparents’ ranch since he was a child. While he also works 50 to 55 hours per week as a construction worker, Shelton spends evenings and days off working for Lazy HK. Throughout the spring, summer, and fall he works seven days a week, caring for and handling the animals, as well as transporting them to rodeos and events.
“It’s fun if you don’t mind going on the road all the time,” Shelton says.
During bull riding season, he travels several days each week to take bulls to events in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Northern California. While some dependable bulls go to every event, Shelton tries to rotate the four-year-olds to break them in to the world of bull riding competitions.
This year, Lazy HK has been supplying bulls to a number of PBR events. Ultimately, Shelton would like to do even more, since PBR events bring in higher prices per animal. He hopes that within the next 10 years, he can work with bulls at Lazy HK exclusively, foregoing his day job as a construction worker.
“I love it,” he says. “It’s worth all of the time I spend.”
Karen Frazier is an author and freelance writer. She lives in Chehalis with her family.
