World champion bull rider Troy Dunn's focus is now on raising a profitable Wagyu Brangus cross herd

Instead of figuring out how he can ride one, these days he's more interested in how they will perform in a paddock when they are joined with his heifers.

With his wife, Jackie, Troy owns three EU accredited blocks - Triple View and Horse Creek, near Bloomsbury, and Oasis at Eungella - where they breed and background a Wagyu Brangus cross herd.

Triple View, which they bought in 2006, is 900 acres (364 ha) while Horse Creek, their home block, is 1100 acres (445 ha) and Oasis is 350 acres (142 ha).

On the two larger blocks, they run up to 700 head while Oasis runs about 120 F1 Wagyu cows for breeding F2 Wagyus.

Troy said they decided on Wagyus in 2017 as a lot of campdrafting friends had gone in to the breed.

"And because we're a small operation, we felt we had to have expensive cattle to make it worthwhile," he said.

"We breed a lot of them here on the Horse Creek place - we put Wagyu bulls over Brangus cows and they breed F1s and we background them at the other place at Triple View to feedlot weight which is about 350-360 kgs and they go to a feedlot in Dalby.

"We only breed F1s and F2 crosses and that's where we stop because, number one, the parasites give them a hard time and, number two, they're hard doers in that it takes a lot to get them up to feedlot weight for their age and we haven't got fattening country here."

Jackie said they went in to Wagyus because they felt there was a better return and they liked the idea of marketing their own cattle.

She said they got a lot of data back on their cattle after they were slaughtered because they had a good relationship with the feedlot.

"So we can be ever improving our base herd with the introduction of new genetics in our bulls," she said.

Troy said when they first moved to the district he had bucking bulls which he contracted out to rodeos and bull riders.

"And, in that time, we got the beef cattle going and fixed the places up as there were no fences or yards," he said.

"At the same time, we started promoting bull riding...so I was president of the PBR here (in Australia) and Jackie was the main administrator, basically she ran the show," he said.

Troy was PBR president from 2006 to 2016 and he is still running bull riding schools and does the occasional judging at a PBR event. The couple also compete at campdrafts.

In December, he and Jackie will travel to Canada to Brooks, south of Calgary, where Troy will run his first overseas two-day bull riding school for up to 30 more experienced riders.

This year marks the 25^th anniversary of Troy winning the PBR World Champion title, and, on October 25, he will be inducted in to the Australian Rodeo Heritage Centre Hall of Fame in Warwick.

In 2021, he was inducted into the Bull Riders Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.

Troy said bull riding was not rocket science, but there were a few physical things that riders needed to learn such as positioning their body, feet, the hand they were holding on with and their free hand.

"When you first start, the bulls haven't got a lot of intensity so they're the ones that the guys have to learn on. To ride one of them is one thing, but to ride another one that turns back or comes around in a circle...that's a different scenario to teach and work out how to ride the spin," he said.

"It's one thing to ride the jump kick, but it's another to ride the spin and on top of all that there's various degrees of spin - there's bulls that are up high in the front end and don't kick as much as bulls that kick more and don't have as much front end. There's bulls that want to throw you to the outside, there's bulls that want to throw you to inside, there's bulls that belly roll, there's bulls that back up...so there's all these different bulls.

"And there's different body positions (for riders). I can't teach timing, but it's something that I make them aware of - the timing and finesse and being relaxed."

Troy said what sorts the men out from the boys was the mental side of the game.

"So If you think you're nervous lining up for a 100-yard race or a game of golf, then bull riding takes those nerves to a whole new level," he said.

"Being able to deal with nerves, the mind game, the mental side of it, the discipline... there's three things I always talk about - it's toughness, attitude and discipline.

"And then there's the fear of failure and competition nerves.. I could talk about that for hours."

Troy was 17 when he competed in his first professional bull ride and he was 38 when he retired in 2005.

During those 21 years in the sport, he reckons he was pretty lucky with injuries although he cannot remember exactly how many broken bones he had.

"I broke my wrist, my arm, dislocated my hip, knocked teeth out, had a heap of stitches, a ruptured gut, chronic back problems, a pulled groin, broken feet and toes," he said.

"I was off for six months with a dislocated hip after a bull, Razor, landed on my thigh at the world finals in the first round, the year I won the title in Vegas at MGM."

And, while the injury happened in the first round of the world finals, Troy was so far ahead on points he still won the title and accepted the trophy while on crutches.

In his heyday, Troy rode up to 120 bulls a year and while he is still associated with the industry through his schools, he does not want to be defined only by his time as a professional bull rider.

He said it depended on what phase of his life he was in as to which job he preferred.

"I wouldn't like to be riding bulls now, but I wouldn't like to have been working big days raising cattle when I could have been riding bulls when I was younger," he said.

"I like doing what I do now that's for sure...but when I was younger I just loved riding bulls. That was my life.

"It started off that I liked it and then I loved it and then I was passionate about it and then I became fanatical about it, that's all I thought about 'how I was going to ride the next bull'.

"I didn't care about fame or fortune or money or glory or anything like that, I just wanted to keep improving as a bull rider and it just so happens that if you like something there's a very good chance you might be alright at it."

To this day, no other Australian has emulated what Troy Dunn achieved as a professional bull rider in the US.