The shape of a bucking career

When Bulls Peak

Across 8,388 recorded outs from bulls with known birth dates, the league-average bull score barely moves from age 4 to age 9 — a good bull holds his form. But the single best trip of a career is another story: it comes at age 5 more often than any other, and ages 4–6 account for 85% of all career highs.

Average Bull Score by Age

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 234567891011 43.7 43.2 42.7 42.9 43.0 42.8 42.8 42.9 42.5 42.4 Avg bull score by age — gold: World Champions · red: all bulls · gray dashes: never-champions

Ages with at least 30 recorded outs (25 for the champion group). The y-axis is zoomed (41–47) to show the shape. The red "all bulls" line includes the champions; the gray dashed line removes them — it barely moves, because champion outs are a sliver of the total. The gold line is every World Champion's recorded career: roughly 2.5 points above the field at every age — champions aren't bulls who peak higher for a season, they're bulls who live on a different level for years.

Champions Win Old

The average bull's career-best trip comes at age 5. The average World Champion is 7.1 years old in his title season — and Smooth Operator won 2020 at 10.9. The title doesn't go to the hottest young bull; it goes to the one still elite when the others have cooled.

TitleChampionAge that season
1998 Moody Blues 4.8
2000 Dillinger 5.8
2001 Dillinger 6.8
2002 Little Yellow Jacket 6.8
2003 Little Yellow Jacket 7.9
2004 Little Yellow Jacket 8.8
2005 Big Bucks 5.8
2006 Mossy Oak Mudslinger 7.8
2008 Bones 4.8
2009 Code Blue 5.8
2010 Bones 6.8
2011 Bushwacker 6.8
2012 Asteroid 5.8
2013 Bushwacker 8.8
2014 Bushwacker 9.8
2015 Long John 5.8
2016 SweetPro's Bruiser 5.7
2017 SweetPro's Bruiser 6.7
2018 SweetPro's Bruiser 7.7
2019 Smooth Operator 9.9
2020 Smooth Operator 10.9

Age at the champion's last recorded out of his title season. Champions without a recorded birth date in the data are omitted. Click the age column to sort.

The dynasty bulls were the old bulls

Sort the table by age and the sport's greatest careers line up at the top. Smooth Operator went back-to-back at essentially 10 and 11. Bushwacker carried his three-peat to 9.8. Little Yellow Jacket carried his three-peat to 8.8. In all, 8 world titles in the recorded data were won by bulls aged seven or older — an age when the rest of the field's buckoff rates are already drifting down, and every repeat champion won at least one of his titles past age six. Greatness in this sport isn't a hot streak. It's a career.

Age at Career-Best Score

Bulls with 10+ recorded outs — the age at which each recorded his single highest-scored trip.

8 3 75 4 89 5 48 6 21 7 6 8 1 9 avg World Champion title age: 7.1 Bulls · age at career high along the bottom

The Numbers

AgeOutsAll bulls avg Champions avgNever-champions avgBuckoff %
2 30 43.66 — — 70.0%
3 168 43.21 44.66 42.69 79.8%
4 1,510 42.74 44.76 42.59 75.1%
5 2,062 42.92 45.64 42.66 75.1%
6 1,889 42.98 45.62 42.71 72.3%
7 1,313 42.78 45.22 42.54 72.4%
8 720 42.77 45.63 42.44 71.4%
9 397 42.85 45.24 42.36 72.3%
10 134 42.52 44.45 42.08 73.9%
11 55 42.37 — 41.94 56.4%

One readable pattern: veterans stay strong on score but become more ridable — buckoff rates drift down as bulls age past 10. Birth dates come from PBR profiles and cover a subset of bulls; ages are computed from recorded out dates. About this data →