Wyatt Crowder is a good businessman. He knows how to work, how to see things from a different perspective, and the 18 year old cowboy is on his way to a well-established business.
The Ft. Lupton, Colo. man found his bucking bull passion four years ago, when he and his uncle bought a cow and five bucking bulls. Wyatt had helped uncle Mike Hadley produce a bull riding futurity in Loveland, and when uncle Rick Harris offered to partner with him on the cow and bulls, he jumped at the chance. After breeding them, they sold them and Wyatt bought his most famous bull so far, The Rocker.
Last October, as a four year old, The Rocker won the Classic at the PBR Finals in Las Vegas. The Classic is an American Bucking Bull event, where bulls are ranked coming into the PBR Finals and are scored. Bulls are scored as they are ridden by PBR Finals qualifiers, and then owners are paid, just as a bull riding event is paid out.
The Rocker bucked off Luke Snyder in the first go-round and Kody Lostroh in the second, scoring an 86.75 and an 89.25 to win. As Classic champ, The Rocker won a gold buckle, trailer, and $200,000. Wyatt had a plan for his earnings: a new truck to replace the old one, and the rest of the money into his business.
Wyatt bought The Rocker as a yearling, unseen. His mom watched him buck at a sale, and “she pretty much told us, go ahead and buy him and trust her, he’s that good,” Wyatt remembers. “We actually kind of stole him for as cheap as he was.” The Rocker required quite a bit of work, however. “I had to do a lot of work with him as a two year old.” Because he had so much kick, he had a tendency to fall to his knees when Wyatt put the dummy rider on him. “I had to do a lot of work teaching him not to fall down.” As a three year old, he began his first year of breeding, and it was last year that Wyatt began hauling him to Classic events.
Prior to high school, Wyatt competed in the tie-down roping and the team roping, but he was getting burned out. “I’d won everything you could win.” That’s when The Rocker entered the picture, and “ever since then, it’s been bulls, bulls, bulls.”
When he started in the bull business, he knew he needed to learn more. “I went down to the big guys (bull stock contractors Darrel Hargis and Dillon and H.D. Page) and learned how to do stuff, and it’s paying off.” He gives credit to Hargis and the Pages. “I got a lot of tips from them. They’ve helped me out quite a bit.” Wyatt’s Uncle Mike also offered advice and helped him get a good start in business.
Not only has Wyatt gotten into the bull business, he’s helped create a bucking bull supplement. With his first bulls, he was feeding the liquid Performance Essential of Formula 707. He really liked it, but it was hard to administer to each bull. He approached Melanie Luark with Formula 707 with suggestions, and she asked for his help in making a bucking bull product. They combined the Performance Essential with other ingredients, and Wyatt is pleased with the result. “It really, really, really works good. I wouldn’t feed my bulls anything else. I won’t take my bulls off 707. Formula 707 bends over backwards to help me out.”
Wyatt graduated from high school in May of 2013, and his future is in his bucking bulls. He has a herd of 50 cows and 25 bulls, and The Rocker has a set of coming two year olds who look really good, with a chance for one of them to go to futurities next summer. He also owns The Rocker’s sire and a brother who is “possibly as good as (The Rocker) is.” He plans on turning The Rocker out on more cows next year, and hauling him to more PBR events. And whatever happens with his business, Wyatt is ready for it. “If you do something, you have to give it 100 percent, or there’s no sense in doing it.”
Formula 707 is one of Wyatt’s sponsors, as is Estes Park Feed Store, Greeley Hat Works, and Knobbs Chiropractic. Wyatt’s parents are Robert and Missy Crowder, and his younger sister, Peyton, also owns some bucking bulls.
