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matt breneman photo
Jeff Robinson receives his PBR Stock Contractor of the Year Award from past winner Chad Berger
“The PBR has been great for me. There is no doubt about that. It has allowed me to do what I want to do and live my dream,” said an appreciative Robinson. “Four or five years ago I was gone four or five weeks at a time on a truck. I’d go from touring pro to touring pro and we did some stuff for Jerry Nelson. Then we started going to the Cups. Right now I can fly out on a Friday and be home on a Sunday and have the week with my family.” The family consists of “hers, mine and ours,” shared Jeff. Kelsey (21), Tate (16) Chase (15), Laney (10), Tucker (4) and Cutter (2) make up the Robinson clan. “If they want to be in the bull business, that is fine but we don’t push them. We support whatever they want to do.” If there is one word that keeps popping up when people talk about Robinson, it is family. Nothing is as important to Robinson as being a good family man. “With the little fellows being home, I didn’t want to be gone for more than two weeks at a time. If it ever comes to that again (being away for weeks at a time), I will probably cut back,” confessed Robinson. “I love going to the events, but I hate being away from home. I missed out on too much with my older kids.” Robinson has primarily been a stock contractor since he started in the bull business, which was his original plan. “95% of the bulls I hauled
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The American Bucking Bull q Jan/Feb 2011
I had purchased, up until about 2007,” explained Robinson. “I had a cowcalf operation but that had never been my goal. I kind of changed when I saw the value of semen sales and saw the value of what the ABBI was doing. We started doing some embryo work and keeping a group of cows. We used Chicken a lot. Then we used Voodoo a lot.” “Most of the bulls I have are put together from pretty good breeding programs, so we are now using those pieces to build our own program. We are building our genetics in our calves on what we have put together—Voodoo, Chicken, Major Payne, I’m a Gangster. This year you will see some of our 3-year-olds at ABBI events.” Robinson says that he culls pretty hard. He actually had some bad luck on some good calves last year and more than his fair share of heifers. “But I think in 2011 we will be able to raise about 100 calves. By 2012, I think we will be up to 200, with 50 of those being embryos,” he said. “We had some success with ABBl bulls El Presidente, Sky Hawk, Neon Ghost and Powerline. We also got involved with Moon and had some success behind the scenes. We tried to get more involved in the ABBI the last few years, but the bulls we were interested in buying people didn’t want to sell. We will start doing more ABBI competitions, but I