On Aug. 30, the world of professional bull riding grew a little quieter, a little dimmer. The dirt that had so often thundered under his hooves now holds only his memory. Ricky Vaughn, the little bull with the biggest heart, crossed the Rainbow Bridge — leaving behind not just a highlight reel of outs and scores, but a story of resilience and love that touched everyone who ever knew his name.
A Battle Few Survive
Ricky Vaughn’s story was never just about bucking. It was about survival. As a young calf, he began showing signs that something was wrong — walking into gates, failing to blink when touched near his eye, his head hung low. What at first looked like a sinus infection was soon revealed as something far more devastating: a pituitary abscess, a condition so rare and so deadly that veterinarians told owner H.D. Page it was considered 100% fatal.
But giving up was never an option. Page and the doctors at Oklahoma State University’s Boren Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital — Dr. Streeter and Dr. Riggi — refused to let Ricky’s story end before it began. They put him under anesthesia, lifted his massive frame onto a CT table, and worked tirelessly to fight what medicine said was unbeatable. For days, he stumbled blind and weak. Students trained him to respond to whistles and the rattle of a feed scoop, leading him gently, step by step, out of the stall and toward the chutes.
Most bulls would not have survived. But Ricky Vaughn was not most bulls.
From Dynamite to a Gentle Giant
When he returned home to Page’s ranch, something began to change. This bull, once known for hating people — “he was mean,” Page admitted — began to soften. In the stall and later in the chutes, the once explosive young star learned to trust. The same hands that had fed him medicine and guided him through blindness became the hands he nuzzled like a big dog.
Riley Gagnon, Director of Livestock, remembered him as “a little stick of dynamite when the chute opened. You don’t get bulls like him every day that have that kind of heart.” But outside the arena, Ricky Vaughn grew gentle, approachable, almost pet-like — a living reminder that the fiercest athletes can still show tenderness.
The Bull with the Biggest Heart
What made Ricky Vaughn legendary wasn’t just his recovery, but what he did after it. Despite his small frame — “not a big bull,” as riders often said — he packed a punch that matched any giant. He earned some of the highest bull scores in recent memory, posting 46.75 points in Duluth for a 3.01-second buckoff of Kyler Oliver, the highest debut bull score in 20 years. Again and again, he left riders in the dirt, proving nearly unrideable.
Yet on the rare occasions when cowboys did last the full eight seconds, Ricky Vaughn gave them magic. Kaique Pacheco rode him for 93 points in Indianapolis, one of the highest scores of his career, calling him “one of the greatest of all time… not big, but with the biggest heart.” John Crimber, just a teenager, hit 92.5 on him in Tucson and called Ricky Vaughn “the coolest bull I’ve ever seen… a true champion.”
But it wasn’t just the ones who made the eight that loved the little bull. Marco Rizzo, who drew Ricky Vaughn as a re-ride during his rookie year, still remembers the moment like it was yesterday. “When I crawled off in the bucking chute, you know, you hear the song Wild Thing crank up, and you hear Clint Adkins talk about Ricky Vaughn. It’s like, holy crap, I’m about to tie in my hand.”
“To me, he reminded me of a marshmallow, but he was just like a ticking time bomb. Once you nodded your head, it was the coolest feeling in the world… like the coolest feeling bull I’ve ever been on. He was so fast, but so so smooth at the same time.”
Rizzo lasted six seconds. “Little scrawny 19-year-old Marco was not ready for him,” he laughed. But when he heard Ricky Vaughn had passed you could see the hurt in his face: “That was kind of heartbreaking, really, there’s only a handful of bulls I’ve ever really wanted to ride… Ricky Vaughn was something special. That bull was cool, and his story was even cooler… so hearing about the news kind of shattered my heart. I felt so bad.”
A Rare Loss
For the men who risk everything to ride, the bulls are not just animals to conquer — they are comrades in the dirt, equal parts adversary and partner. When Ricky Vaughn crossed over into the land of endless grain and open pastures, it was as if the riders had lost one of their own, a teammate whose courage and heart had carried them all.
When the news came that Ricky Vaughn had passed, riders, stock contractors, and fans alike felt the same hollow ache. This wasn’t just the loss of a bull. It was the loss of a miracle, a fighter, and an adversary in the sport. “They’re part of your family,” Page once said. “You get attached to them.”
Ricky Vaughn was more than buckles and bull scores. He was a survivor, a friend, and proof that heart matters more than size. He went from hatred to love, from blind to brilliant bovine, from a calf with no chance to a superstar ranked No. 1 in the YETI World Champion Bull race.
Across the Rainbow Bridge
Now, Ricky Vaughn runs free on the Rainbow Bridge — the mythical meadow where animals wait for those who loved them, restored to perfect health, their pain erased. One can imagine him there, not stumbling blindly but charging, leaping, kicking with the power and grace that made him a fan favorite. Not angry, not hurting, but gentle once more — ears pricked, licking his lips at the sound of a shaken feed scoop.
For the PBR, his passing is more than the loss of a bull. It is the loss of a heartbeat that thudded as fiercely as any rider's. “You don’t get bulls like him every day,” Gagnon said. And he was right. Ricky Vaughn was one of one.
The little bull with the biggest heart is gone, lost to surgery complications unrelated to the blindness he once overcame. But his story — his fight, his fire, his tenderness — will live on in every chute gate that swings open, in every rider who dreams of 90 points, and in every fan who believes in miracles.
Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media