Kent Cox has been a factor in the bucking bull business for many years.

First he competed as a bull rider with the PRCA and the PBR. Cox actually qualified for the PBR finals, but due to an injury, he was not able to compete. Later, he teamed up with his friend Dean Wilson and they served as the dummy men at many of the top futurities, becoming most efficient at strapping on the dummies while bucking around 40 bulls per hour. Cox also has one of the top breeding programs in the country. Last, but not least, he is becoming one of the best bull haulers going, having placed the flank on the top bull of the ABBI last season, T11 Troubadour, for Julio and Cindy Moreno.

The first thing you will learn about Cox is his honesty. The man who helped raise him, and mentored him most of his adult life, is Monty Samford, who described Cox this way: “Kent Cox probably ate at my house more than his own from the time he was 15 to 18 and there is not a more honest person. In fact, he is brutally honest, and that is saying something. In an industry that has had some unpopular deals done, Kent will always be fair, and I consider him my stepson and would trust him with anything I own.”

Cox was born in the Texas panhandle and moved to Stephenville back in 1991 just to be around rodeo and bull riding. While living in the area he attended Vernon Junior College. “I wasn’t a great bull rider,” Cox said of his college days, “but made enough to get by on and enough to get to the next event. I managed to get some education and numerous broken bones along the way — you know, all the good things that go with bull riding. I had my big wreck back in the fall of 1997 where I virtually broke every bone in the right side of my face, along with losing the sight in my right eye. I knew after that wreck my riding career was over, but I had been messing with bulls for quite awhile, and thought about working on this side of the business. I had ridden my first big bull at Monty Samford’s ranch and was around livestock most of the time. I lived with Sandy Kirby while I was in school and he was heavily involved with the bucking bulls. Kirby furnished bulls to Billy Bob’s in Ft Worth for some 20 years, so I sure enough had some background in the bull business. Samford would send green bulls to me while I was still in college and we would go through them, and that is probably where I really started messing with bulls on my own. I knew early there was something I loved about messing with bulls. I can sit and watch them eat and play for hours; they just mesmerize me because they are athletes. Today, it’s my job is to make them the best athlete they can be. I don’t train them, because the bull has the ability to buck or he doesn’t, and there is nothing you can do to make him any other way. My job is to help them be the best they can with nutrition, exercise, vitamins and minerals, and try to get them to their ultimate level.”

His entry into breeding started almost a decade ago. “I bought Cowboy Cash,” he recalled, “when he was a yearling from Ronny Roach in 1999. Monty Samford owned Houdini at the time and I had seen what his calves had done. He was sired by White Sports Coat and I wanted a bull that was bred that same way. Cowboy Cash was injured early in his career and never got to meet his potential in the arena. The main reason I purchased him was to breed to him, and he has done a great job for us. He has produced five futurity champions along with What I Say owned by the Heberts, and has been used as a short go bull at PBR events. I have leased a White Water son from the Morenos and used an A6 son last season to do some crossing with my Cowboy Cash daughters.”