by Terry Lidral
Bucking bull partnership was a life that, as kids, Brandon and Alexa Chambers never imagined. Brandon grew up skateboarding and spending his time at the beach. Alexa grew up going to rodeo events with her dad and leaving well before the bull riding because he thought it was too dangerous to watch. They came from different worlds even though they both grew up in North Carolina. And neither one had any idea that the bucking bull business was in their future.
“He was a skateboarder from the city with long blonde hair who was always at the beach,” said Alexa about the man she came to marry. “My family knew nothing about the city life or the beach life. I grew up in the country. Brandon and I met at a rodeo and now we own a ranch and are partners in the BC Cattle bucking bull business.”
Brandon’s introduction to bucking bulls came when he was 17 years old and right then and there, he was hooked on the sport of bull riding.
“I broke my ankle and I was out of skateboarding competition so my friends and I went to the county fair,” Brandon told the story of how he became a bull rider. “There was a bull riding competition and I said to myself, ‘I think I can do that.’ So, I found the guy who had brought the bulls and we started talking. He told me he had practice sessions every week and that I was welcome. I went and I realized that bull riding was what I wanted to do with my life.”
“When Brandon got on the back of that first bull, it was the first time he’d ever touched a farm animal,” said Alexa. “He loved it and he never looked back. It’s the thrill of the sport that he loves.”
“I’ve gone parachuting,” Brandon told us. “The thrill of parachuting is not even comparable to the thrill of getting onto the back of a bucking bull. I’ve been riding since I was 17, half my life, and I still love it.”
Brandon Chambers rides in SEBRA, SRA and PBR events. He holds the record for the most trips by a bull rider to the SEBRA Finals. He recently came in 2nd place at the PBR Velocity Tour Dayton Rumble.
When Alexa met Brandon, she was barrel racing and he was riding bulls. She’d never even considered a life that evolved around the bucking bulls she’d been so wary of.
“Brandon is a bull rider and he wanted bulls. We bought some weanlings and some practice bulls and, all of a sudden, I was working with bucking bulls,” Alexa said with a hint of lingering amazement in her voice. “I’d never wanted to do this, work with bulls. I told him, ‘Not for me ever.’ He didn’t listen,” she added with a laugh.
Brandon needed a partner and when event producers started asking them to haul their bulls, Alexa found herself in a brand new job as a stock contractor.
“He told me, ‘You’re going to have to pull your weight. In the practice pens, you pull the rope and open the chutes,'” Alexa said of her entrance into the business. “When we were asked to haul, it came to me to handle the bulls. He told me, ‘I ride, you haul and flank the bulls. My mind is set on riding. Good luck, honey. ‘ So that’s what I do.”
The Chambers have 7 bucking bulls they haul to events as well as a set of cows to raise their own bucking bulls. They haul to the Southern Extreme Bull Riding Association, the Southern Rodeo Association and the Professional Bull Riders Tour. With Brandon riding a full schedule in all the circuits, Alexa is pretty much on her own getting the bulls from their home in North Carolina to the events scattered around the Eastern United States.
“I load the bulls. I drive the hauler. And I take care of the bulls at the event. And of course, I flank them too,” said Alexa of her duties on the road. “Sometimes Brandon and I travel together if he’s riding at the same event. But often we go our separate ways.”
One of the bulls that Alexa hauls has become her favorite and she considers him to be her pet.
“We got Baby Henry in our first batch of weanlings and he was big even as a baby. In fact, he was too big to buck with a dummy,” Alexa explained about the bull she kept for a riding bull. “We put a dummy on him as a weanling and he kicked, then just fell over. He laid there like a beached whale. It was embarrassing,” she told us, laughing at the memory. “He was cute and gentle and I told Brandon I wanted to keep him so that I could ride him and carry the flag at rodeos. But Baby Henry grew up to be a bucking bull.”
“I am a school teacher and I was at school when Brandon called me at the end of the day. He told me, ‘I have some good news and some bad news,” continued Alexa. “‘The bad news is that I bucked Baby Henry with a rider without you being here. The good news is that he bucked, he really bucked good.’ I was a little upset that he’d bucked my bull without me” admitted Alexa. “But at least he had good news.”
Baby Henry was only 2 years old when the Chambers started hauling him on the truck to events with the other bulls.
“Just like me, he had to earn his keep,” Alexa said in a humorous tone. “He’s now a 6 year old and weighs around 1700 pounds. He’s been hauled to an average of 20 events a year and he’s only been ridden once. At home he’s a big pet but you put him in the chute and he’s ready to buck. He loves his job.”
Besides hauling bucking bulls, the Chambers have a breeding program that they are excited about.
“We have 12 cows. I bought the first one for Brandon for his 30th birthday and we’ve built up from there. Our sire is a son of Panhandle Slim out of a Houdini daughter,” Alexa explained of the foundation genetics being used for their breeding program. “He’s been a great bull to haul who is now retired out in the pasture with his cows. The calves we have out of him are really bucking. We’re going to keep breeding our cows to him for at least the next couple years.”
For now, the Chambers are concentrating on rider bulls but that might change in the future.
“Brandon and I are often going in separate directions and so going to futurity competitions doesn’t work for us right now. We are blessed with good rider bulls and that’s what we do,” explained Alexa.
The Chambers credit friends and family with their success in the bucking bull business. It’s the man who put Brandon on his first bull that has supported him all the way through his career.
“That man taught me how to ride,” Brandon said of the person who remains one of his best friends and mentor. “He has treated me like a son and we talk every week. He’s supported me my whole career and I really appreciate him.”
Alexa and Brandon Chambers met Shiloh Walden of Walden Bucking Bulls at a SEBRA event and they became good friends. They joined with Shiloh and John Brennan to become part of the John Brennan/Bucking Stock Talk Bull Team for the Million Dollar Bull Team Challenge at the PBR Velocity Tour Wheeling Invitational.
And Alexa couldn’t maintain the ranch and haul the bulls without her family. “This is truly a family business.”
