There are great bulls.

And then there are the bulls who leave a mark long after their final out.

102 Promiseland, also known throughout his career as Cripple Creek’s Promiseland, was one of those bulls.

The 1999 PBR World Champion Bull was the kind of bovine athlete who made stock contractors lean forward, riders nod with respect and fans understand, almost instantly, why PBR has always believed there are two great athletes in every ride.

Now, the legendary bovine will receive one of the sport’s most prestigious honors as he is inducted with the PBR Brand of Honor.

The PBR Brand of Honor, created in 2011, is the highest honor a bovine animal athlete can receive. Bestowed upon the legendary bulls of the PBR, the honor recognizes animal athletes whose spirit, skill, consistency and career statistical records surpassed even the highest expectations of the bull riding world.

For Promiseland, that standard fits.

Owned by five-time PBR Stock Contractor of the Year Terry Williams, 102 Promiseland became just the fifth bull to earn the distinction of PBR World Champion Bull when he was crowned in 1999. Across his PBR career, Promiseland allowed 39 rides in 97 outs for a 60% buckoff rate, while amassing a lifetime average bull score of 45.46.

He was marked 46 points or better 29 times, cracked the 47-point mark nine times and recorded a career-high bull score of 48.5 points in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2000 while bucking off Cody Hart.

His highest-marked qualified ride came when Bubba Dunn rode him for 96.5 points, one of the four legendary 96.5-point rides that stood atop the sport for years until Jose Vitor Leme broke through in Tulsa.

In other words, when Promiseland showed up, the judges’ pencils got a workout.

But the numbers only tell part of the story.

Promiseland competed in an era when the PBR was still carving out its identity around a simple, powerful promise: the best riders against the best bulls. And Promiseland did his part to make sure that standard meant something.

He faced some of the greatest names to ever nod their head, including many of the sport’s founders and early icons — Ty Murray, Michael Gaffney, Jim Sharp, Adriano Moraes, Mike Custer, the Carrillo brothers, Owen Washburn, Troy Dunn and Justin McBride, among others.

Williams remembers that ride not just because of the score, but because of the way Promiseland bucked.

“He was just really getting up off the ground in the front end and really just popping, kicking,” Williams said. “Really kicking hard. Way over his head.”

Promiseland had the rare ability to be both explosive and honest. He could spin. He could kick. He could get vertical and make even the best riders work for every inch of the eight seconds. But when a rider did make the whistle, it was going to be great.

That was the magic.

Promiseland did not just buck riders off. He gave the right riders a chance to be the best.

For Williams, that was always part of what made an elite bull special. And it also shaped the way he handled the end of their careers.

Williams never wanted to haul a great bull so long that time, age or mileage allowed the wrong kind of ride to become part of the story. His philosophy was simple: when a bull had proven he was one of the best, he deserved to go out that way.

“I want to retire them before,” Williams said. “I want him to quit when he’s supposed to quit, and only guys that were supposed to ride him rode him.”

That may sound old-school, but then again, Promiseland was an old-school kind of great.

Williams found him through Chuck White, an early PBR bull rider who lived in Promise Land, Arkansas. White knew of a bull and told Williams about him. Williams went and got him, and the name followed him home.

That is how a bull from Arkansas became Promiseland.

At first, he was not the massive, imposing bovine athlete fans would later remember. Williams said Promiseland was still young and a little small early on. After one of his first PBR outs, the bull got sore and was turned out for several months.

It turned out to be the best thing for him.

When Promiseland healed, he came back bigger, stronger and ready to become exactly what his name suggested.

“He got well and got big,” Williams said. “And then that’s when he was a man.”

By the time he hit his prime, Promiseland was among the largest bulls Williams had hauled, weighing around 1,900 pounds. He was big, powerful and rank in the arena.

At home, he was something else entirely.

Williams remembers him as gentle, easy to be around and never much trouble. Promiseland had a hollow horn that needed cleaning every now and then, and Williams could simply put feed out, pull the plug from the horn and clean it while the bull stood there eating.

No fight. No fuss. Just Promiseland being Promiseland.

And then there was the Christmas card.

One year, before Promiseland became a PBR World Champion, he played a different kind of starring role for the Williams family.

There he stood behind the fence, big head lowered just enough, a Santa hat sitting proudly atop his massive head. On the other side of the boards, Williams’ two children stood close enough by, the camera capturing the kind of Christmas card only a bull riding family could send.

A very cowboy Christmas: two kids, one Santa hat and a future World Champion Bull who, for a moment, looked less like a nightmare draw and more like part of the family.

For a 1,900-pound bucking bull who would go on to test Hall of Famers, World Champions and some of the rankest riders in the sport, it was a perfectly ridiculous and perfectly fitting image.

Not exactly the kind of Christmas present you put under the tree — unless you have a really big tree and excellent fence.

But that is what made Promiseland special. He could be a gentleman at home and a nightmare when the gate cracked. He could stand quietly for the Williams family one day, then launch himself into PBR history the next.

Williams had plenty of great ones in that era, with a program built on persistence and an unwillingness to stop searching. He hauled bulls like Baby Face, Panhandle Slim and Moody Blues, and built one of the most dominant stock contracting runs in PBR history. His success earned him five PBR Stock Contractor of the Year honors, a reflection of both the depth of his program and the standard he carried into every event.

His approach was not complicated.

“We never quit,” Williams said. “You can never rest one day. We were looking for more bulls at all times.”

Promiseland was the kind of bull every contractor is always looking for.

Rank enough to win a world title. Honest enough to produce huge scores. Consistent enough to earn the respect of the riders. Gentle enough to be remembered like a friend.

When Williams looks back, that is what stands out most.

“He was just a bull that you couldn’t wait for him to go each night,” Williams said. “You knew he was going to buck, and if they did ride him, it was going to be in the 90s. He was easygoing. He wasn’t a problem with other bulls. He was just a good one to have around.”

In other words, Promiseland was the friend you could take to the bar who wasn’t going to start the fight, wasn’t going to cause a scene and wasn’t looking for trouble — but if trouble found him, you knew exactly whose side you wanted to be on.

“Just like a great friend,” he said.

That is the heart of the Brand of Honor.

It is not only about the outs, the scores or the records, though Promiseland had all of them. It is about the animals that helped shape the sport. The bulls that made riders better, made fans louder and made the PBR’s founding idea impossible to ignore.

There are two athletes in every ride.

In 102 Promiseland, one of them was a World Champion, a Santa hat model, a 1,900-pound gentleman and one of the greatest bovine athletes the PBR has ever seen, still to this day.

Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media