FORT WORTH, Texas – In mythology, Pegasus was never meant to stay on the ground.
The winged horse of the heavens was born from battle, rose from pain and became a symbol of power, freedom and immortality. He was the creature that did what ordinary animals could not. He flew.
For the last several seasons, 247 Pegasus did the same thing.
Only he did it from the back of a bucking chute.
With one horn, kind eyes and a heart that seemed far too big for his body, the 8-year-old bovine athlete from McCoy Rodeo/Spencer Neil never needed wings to make people believe he could fly. Every time the gate cracked, Pegasus launched himself into the dirt with the kind of violence, timing and athleticism that made bull riders want him, judges reward him and fans remember him.
He was small by comparison to some of the rankest bulls in the world. He was gray. He was gritty. He was unmistakable.
And to those closest to him, he was precious.
“Precious Pegasus,” Sara McCoy called him.
But what made Pegasus so great was not just the numbers, the scores, the buckoffs or the world title race he nearly won. It was something harder to measure, but impossible to miss.
He loved what he did.
The truly great ones always do.
They do not just explode from the chute because they are bred to. They do not just turn back because they are trained to. They do it with their whole heart, with a fire that belongs only to the animal athletes who seem to understand exactly who they are when the gate swings open.
Pegasus had that.
And if you were around him long enough, Sara said, you could see it in his eyes.
They were kind. They were knowing. They looked into your soul. They told you when he was ready, when he trusted you, when he understood you were helping him and when he still had more fight left to give.
That was how Pegasus communicated.
He did not have words. He did not need them. His eyes told the story.
By the end, after more than a year of fighting an infection that had quietly waged war inside his skull, after the horn was gone, after one eye had to be removed, after he had survived a surgery so extensive it took roughly 30 people and three surgeons working to save him, Pegasus had taken on another name inside the hearts of those who loved him.
The one-horned wonder. The one-eyed wonder. Pegasus 3.0.
And now, after passing away following his battle, Pegasus has finally become what his name always promised.
A true Pegasus.
The kind with wings.
While he never became the YETI PBR World Champion Bull on this side of Heaven’s fence post, missing the 2026 title by one one-hundredth of a point, he now joins a pen beyond this world that surely includes some of the rankest, most beloved animal athletes to ever buck.
There, the horn does not ache. The eye is restored. The sinus infection is gone. The miles are now endless pastures. The chutes are quiet until he wants them open.
And Pegasus can fly.
But before he ever earned those wings and the arena lights gave way to something eternal, Pegasus had one final fight left in him.
One one-hundredth of a point.
That was all that separated Ransom from Pegasus when the dust settled inside Dickies Arena at the 2026 PBR World Finals: Unleash The Beast.
By the time the final short round of the season arrived, Pegasus held a .05-point lead over Ransom in the average bull score standings. It was the kind of margin that left no room for an off trip, no room for a mistake and no room for anything short of greatness.
When the season ended, Ransom was crowned both the 2026 YETI PBR World Champion Bull and the YETI “Built for the Wild” Bull of the Finals, finishing with a 45.96-point average. Pegasus finished No. 2 in the world with a 45.95-point average.
The difference was .01 point.
In a sport built on fractions, flashes and split-second bursts of greatness, Pegasus’ world title race came down to the smallest possible measurement.
But the story of Pegasus was never going to be fully told by a decimal.
His 2026 season alone told enough to make him unforgettable. He finished the year with a 45.95-point average bull score, a 45.39-point average out score, a season-high 46.8-point bull score, 17 total outs and a 76.47% buckoff percentage.
He was marked 46.8 points at the 2026 PBR World Finals in Fort Worth when he dispatched Daylon Swearingen, just weeks after matching with Swearingen in Tacoma, Washington, where Pegasus earned a 45.9-point bull score and helped carry the former World Champion to a career-high score.
It was not the only career-best moment Pegasus gave a rider. He also helped Dener Barbosa reach a career-high 93.1-point score, further cementing his reputation as the kind of bull who could give riders the moments they had dreamed of.
After Pegasus’ passing, one of the many voices mourning him belonged to Swearingen, one of the few riders who knew what it felt like to nod his head on the one-horned wonder and be carried into a moment he would never forget.
For the riders, Pegasus represented opportunity. The kind of bull that could change a season, a standing, a career-high mark, a memory.
“Pegasus was a special bull,” Swearingen wrote, “and while he’ll be missed, his legacy will live on through his offspring. Hopefully one day I’ll get the chance to nod my head on one of his calves and carry on a small part of what made him so great.”
Callum Miller was the final rider to nod his head aboard Pegasus in PBR competition. On May 17 at the 2026 PBR World Finals in Fort Worth, Pegasus was marked 46.1 points.
It would be his final PBR out.
The last time fans saw Pegasus in the arena, he was still doing what he had always done.
Flying.
For much of the world, Pegasus’ fight became visible only in recent days.
For McCoy Ranch, it had been going on much longer.
Sara McCoy said the first signs of trouble began more than a year ago, just before the 2025 PBR World Finals, when Pegasus started showing signs of a horn infection. He was treated by veterinarians, and the decision was eventually made to surgically remove the horn.
What they learned, however, was that it was not an average horn infection.
Pegasus had been fighting it for a long time. His sinus was damaged. The bone in his skull had begun to deteriorate. Over the months that followed, his care became a constant, hands-on effort.
The McCoys drained his sinus manually. They worked with veterinarians. They monitored him closely at the ranch. They hauled him to specialists. They cared for him day after day after day.
Cord McCoy described it as “personal care for 365 days.”
That is what Pegasus required, and that is what he received.
“He is the one bull in the world today that has had his own butler for a straight year,” Cord said, explaining the level of attention required to keep him healthy, rested, comfortable and prepared for the miles he traveled.
That care, Cord said, was bigger than one season or one title race.
It was about Pegasus. It was about the McCoy Ranch. It was about genetics. It was about the next decade.
“Pegasus wasn’t just bucking for himself,” Cord said.
That sentence became one of the truest ways to understand him.
Pegasus was bucking for his people.
For Sara, who called herself his mom and spoke about him with the pride of one.
For Cord, who helped guide his career and care.
For Tulsa, the McCoys’ young daughter, who was left to understand the loss in the only way a child knows how — sitting in church, quietly drawing Pegasus with his one horn, his brand and his number, then adding a little headstone that said what everyone who loved him was still trying to accept: rest in peace.
For Spencer Neil, the bull’s partner, who imagined the one-horned, one-eyed version of Pegasus as a new chapter rather than an ending.
For the riders who chased history with him, the fans who felt like they knew him and the future calves that will carry a piece of him back into the arena.
Bulls like Pegasus buck with purpose. They carry themselves like they know the arena belongs to them. They do not just answer the gate. They attack the moment.
Pegasus did all of that, but he also had something gentler beneath the rankness. His kindness did not make him any less powerful. If anything, it made him more extraordinary.
The same bull who could rocket a World Champion into the dirt could also stand in a treatment chute and tell the people around him, with those soft, knowing eyes, that he understood.
That duality was Pegasus.
A beast in the arena. A sweetheart at home. A fighter everywhere he went.
“He really did a good job of hiding it”
Sara said that was one of the hardest parts.
On the outside, Pegasus looked good.
More than good.
“He looked like a million bucks,” she said.
He loaded on the trailer. He traveled. He bucked. He carried himself with spirit.
Sara said the word she kept using to describe him was that he was in “good spirits.” She and the McCoy family spend their lives watching bulls, studying them, reading them. Pegasus, she said, always seemed willing. Always ready. Always himself.
“He’d hop on the trailer, he’d buck like a champ,” Sara said. “He really did a good job of hiding it.”
That is part of what made Pegasus so special, and part of what made losing him so painful.
He did not just compete because people asked him to. He competed because, in every way he could communicate, he kept telling them he wanted to.
The McCoys believe in listening to their bulls. They believe the animals speak if you know how to hear them. Pegasus spoke through his behavior, through his willingness, through his eyes and through the way he kept lighting up when it was time to do the job he loved.
Behind those beautiful eyes, the infection was worsening. The McCoys knew his sinus was not draining properly, but they did not know the full extent of what was happening inside him.
Then, after the Finals, everything changed quickly.
Pegasus had been given time off following the PBR World Finals. He had bucked at a pro rodeo just two days before the severity of his condition became impossible to miss. According to Sara, within roughly 24 hours, pressure from the infection had become so severe that his condition rapidly deteriorated.
His head began to swell. His eye was affected. The storm Sara would later describe as “brewing behind the scenes” had erupted.
“It was like a bomb just kind of went off inside,” Sara said.
Pegasus was rushed to Texas A&M University, where the effort to save him became massive.
A team of approximately 30 people worked on him. Three surgeons were involved. Doctors made multiple bone flaps throughout his facial area to reach the infected sinus cavities. They removed the majority of the infection, but the damage was extensive. His right eye had to be removed. The horn where the infection originated had only been part of the battle.
Through it all, Pegasus kept fighting.
Dr. Reed and her team worked to give him a chance. Sara said Dr. Reed later admitted that when Pegasus arrived, she was not sure he would make it as far as he did.
But Pegasus had a habit of making people believe.
After surgery, he stood. He ate. He took baby steps forward.
“He made it through surgery,” Sara said. “After all of that, he was standing and eating.”
For a moment, there was hope.
Not a guarantee. Not certainty. But hope.
Hope that the bull who had already survived so much could survive this too.
Hope that the one-horned wonder could become the one-eyed wonder.
Hope that Pegasus could come home.
Sara was on her way to Texas A&M the morning Pegasus passed.
In the days before, she had fought with the instinct of a caretaker who knew his habits, his personality and his needs. When he was not eating at first, Sara thought what any mother would think.
He needed his mom.
Sara said, “I can get him to eat.”
And for a little while, Pegasus did what Pegasus had always done. He fought. He found the strength to stand on his own and started eating without her there, giving everyone another small reason to believe the one-horned wonder might still make it home.
But this time, even his strength was not enough.
Before she could get there, she received the call.
Pegasus was gone.
The goodbye any mother would have wanted to give with her arms wrapped around her baby had to happen over the phone.
There are moments in the bucking bull business that are not captured by the bright lights of an arena, not measured by bull scores and not printed in standings.
A woman on the phone, saying goodbye to the bull she loved like family, is one of them.
Sara had spoken of Pegasus like a proud mom when he was alive. She lit up telling Dr. Reed how sweetly he handled treatment, how gently he would step into the chute, how he seemed to understand they were helping him.
“We’d have to work him in the chute a lot,” Sara said. “He was so sweet.”
For a bucking bull, a treatment chute can be a dangerous and stressful place. The animals do not always understand that the people around them are trying to help. But Pegasus did.
“He knew,” Sara said. “He knew we were helping him.”
That was Pegasus.
The McCoys plan to create a memorial for him at the ranch. Sara said they will likely have some sort of headstone made for him, something to honor his life and legacy at the place where he was loved most.
A headstone for the bull who became so much more than a bull.
After Pegasus’ passing, the response was overwhelming.
Fans, riders, stock contractors and members of the bucking bull community flooded social media with messages. Many had followed Sara’s daily updates as Pegasus fought through surgery and recovery. Many had prayed for him. Many had hoped he would make it home.
Sara said the family had no idea just how many people loved him.
“We knew how much we loved him,” she said. “But we didn’t know, just how much the PBR fans admired him.”
They knew what they saw at home. They knew his grit. They knew he gave 110% every time the gate opened. They knew he had fight.
What they did not fully realize was how visible that fight had become to everyone else.
Fans saw it from the stands.
Riders felt it under them.
Stock contractors respected it.
And the entire bucking bull world seemed to recognize something rare in him.
Pegasus was not just another top-ranked bovine athlete. He had become personal to people. He had become a bull fans checked on. A bull they prayed for. A bull they rooted for like he belonged to them too.
That is the strange and beautiful thing about the great ones.
They begin as athletes.
They become names.
Then, somewhere between the dirt, the lights, the rides, the buckoffs, the scores and the stories, they become part of people.
Pegasus had that unmistakable spark.
He was not just hard to ride.
He was hard to forget.
Long before his final season, Pegasus had already built a resume worthy of admiration.
Raised by Ken King of Box K, Pegasus was sired by past PRCA Bull of the Year 455 Buckeye, a son of 315 Panhandle Slim. His mother, HC 39, was a daughter of PBR Bull of the Year Moody Blues and backed by a Texas Twister daughter.
His genetics said he was bred to be special.
His career proved it.
At the 2025 National Finals Rodeo, Pegasus was crowned Bull of the NFR for McCoy Rodeo.
In Round 5, he matched with Stetson Wright in a showdown many expected could lead to a round-winning score for the rider. Pegasus had other plans, dispatching Wright in 4.99 seconds and earning a 45.75-point bull score, tying for the highest-marked bull of the NFR at that point.
In Round 10, with everything on the line, Pegasus faced Tristen Hutchings. Again, the matchup carried the possibility of a major rider score.
Again, Pegasus ended the conversation himself.
He bucked off Hutchings in 2.03 seconds and was marked 46 points, the highest bull score of the entire NFR.
The little gray, one-horned bull had made his statement.
From there, his legend only grew.
He bucked from New York City to Tacoma, Washington. He entered the PBR World Finals as part of a heated world title race. He carried Swearingen to a career-high score. He pushed Ransom to the final out of the season. He finished No. 2 in the world by the smallest of margins.
All while fighting a battle few fully understood.
Pegasus’ worldly arena career has ended, but his story has not.
Before his passing, the McCoys were able to collect semen from him. Some has been sold within the industry, and McCoy Ranch will use a significant amount themselves.
Sara said there are not currently any Pegasus calves on the ground that she is aware of, but that is about to change.
Cord has already set up roughly 50 heifers to be artificially inseminated to Pegasus.
That means, if all goes well, the first wave of Pegasus offspring could arrive in 2027.
For Sara, that brings comfort.
A piece of him will continue.
Different calves. Different personalities. Different futures.
But all carrying something from Pegasus.
She has no doubt Pegasus will be a producer.
“Even if they’re half as good as him, that’ll be amazing,” she said.
And the riders? Well, they are already ready to climb aboard.
Swearingen said he hopes one day he gets the chance to nod his head on one of Pegasus’ calves.
If that day comes, it will be more than a matchup.
It will be a continuation.
Pegasus spent his life proving that ordinary limitations did not apply to him.
He fought through infection, surgery and exhaustion. He stood after procedures that might have stopped another animal. He ate when doctors needed him to eat. He took baby steps forward. He held on long enough to give everyone hope.
He made Sara proud.
He gave Tulsa something to draw.
He gave Cord a reason to remind the world that Pegasus was not just bucking for himself but the whole ranch.
He gave everything.
That is what the great ones do.
On this side of the fence post, Pegasus finished World No. 2.
On the other side, maybe the gate has already swung open.
Maybe Man Hater is there. Maybe Bushwacker is watching. Maybe the rankest bulls to ever buck have gathered in a pen no standings can measure. Maybe Pegasus, whole again, one horn no longer missing, one eye no longer gone, finally understands why he was named for something that was never meant to be earthbound.
Maybe now, with wings across his back and no pain left in his body, he is doing what he always did best.
Flying.
Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media