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34 Oscar's Velvet

Buckin' Stock Magazine - 03/10/2006
by Angie Gentry

34 Oscar's Velvet
by Angie Gentry


The truly great bloodlines are those that yield generations of successful buckers and consistently produce exceptional sires and dams. 34 Oscar's Velvet belongs to one of those bucking bull families that can be considered truly great. Oscar's Velvet, also known as Little Oscar and Oscar II, was born to be a bucking bull. His sire, PRCA Hall of Fame bucking bull Oscar, was seldom ridden during his long career and passed on his bucking ability to his many sons, including 34.
Oscar's Velvet was raised by Bob Barmby of California. Jack Roddy, Bob Cook and Jack Sparrow of RCS, Inc. hauled the bull early in his career until he was sold to Christensen Brothers Rodeo Company for an unprecedented ten thousand dollars. In 1983, Oscar's Velvet was named PRCA Bucking Bull of the Year, a well-deserved title according to California breeder Alex Naccarato. "He was one of the top bulls going all throughout his career," Naccarato said.
"I'd seen him buck and Bobby (Christensen) and I were good friends. He knew I had those Oscar daughters. I borrowed him from Bobby and put him on daughters of those cows and I kind of liked the calves and everything that came out of him," he said. "I got him for the first time in '87. I ended up buying him in 1989 or so and I bred him from '89 to '92 steadily. He passed away in '92."
Naccarato said he knew 34 was an Oscar son and that the bull's lineage was a deciding factor in using him as a herd sire. Oscar Velvet's personality was also something Naccarato wanted to propagate within his herd. "He was just one of those bulls who watched everything and he was so smart. Most of the time he had things figured out before you did," he said.
According to Naccarato, the 1990 calf crop of Oscar Velvet sons was a list of soon-to-be superstars. "I used to brand year brands and usually I didn't brand zeros on them but I did that time. I had a bunch of good bulls with zeros on them. Trick or Treat, Knothead, A6, A9 Copenhagen Lite were the ones we had known about," he said. All of these bulls were sold to Dan Russell of Western Rodeos and went on to have successful bucking careers that, in most cases, included multiple NFR selections. In 1994, there were seven sons and grandsons of Oscar's Velvet at the National Finals Rodeo.
Russell said, "Out of the first ten I got from Alex, I would say six of them were outstanding." Russell, who was familiar with the Barmby bloodline and Oscar genetics, said he has used several of the bulls raised by Naccarato in his breeding program and has been very pleased with the results. "We've just started bucking our Trick or Treat calves and I've got one that I'm taking to the Duncan futurity," he said.
The first bull Russell used for a breeding bull was A6, he said. A6 has gone on to produce top-notch bucking bulls such as Frontier Rodeo Company's 602 Hungry Eyes and the legendary Hotel California. A6 was traded to Derrel Hargis and later sold to Terry Williams.
The most famous son of Oscar's Velvet is 97 Whitewater Skoal. Whitewater went to the NFR seven times and the PBR Finals. He was voted Sierra Circuit Bull of the Year twice and was also named third place Bull of the Year in 1999. At the 1999 NFR, he was accompanied by three of his sons, Water Gate, White Wall and White Rock. In addition, Whitewater also sired the 2001 Buckers Gold Standard Futurity Champion, Satan's Own, who has gone on to have a successful career in both the PRCA and PBR.
According to Naccarato, the Oscar's Velvet sons are proving themselves as sires and the Oscar's Velvet daughters are exceptional as well. Bulls out of Oscar's Velvet daughters include Reindeer Dippin', Werewolf, Matrix, Megabucks and 21 Black Jack, Naccarato said.
The list of bulls that can trace their lineage back to 34 Oscar's Velvet as their sire or grandsire is a long and impressive list. According to Naccarato, bulls like A23 Nitro, 24 Pretty Boy Floyd, A20 Candyman, A2 Rojo and Wyatt's Nightmare are all sons or grandsons of the great Oscar's Velvet.
Many of these bulls have also gone on to sire great bucking bulls. J.W. Hart loaned A2 Rojo from Russell several years ago and raised 011 Harlem Nights and 2005 ABBI Classic World Finals Qualifier 12 Cat Man Do. Harlem Nights had a rewarding futurity career and was sold to Dillon Page and Tom Teague. The bull placed fourth at the futurity finals in Las Vegas as a two-year-old and was injured the following year. Cat Man Do, however, stayed sound and placed in the top ten in both rounds of the 2005 Classic World Finals and finished sixth for the year-end standings. He has since made several impressive showings at PBR events and was purchased by Kingpen Cattle Company. In eight PBR career outs, he has been ridden successfully two times. Both times the score was over 90 points.
The prolificacy of Oscar's Velvet and his offspring will be seen far into the future, Naccarato said. Before his death, Oscar's Velvet was collected and Naccarato has several sons and grandsons waiting in the wings for their shot at the big shows.
Gary Isbell of Oak View, California recently purchased over 300 straws of Oscar's Velvet semen in a partnership with Brian Sweeney and Judd Leffew. "We're trying to get the purest Oscar line we can," Isbell said.
"I started flushing a Wolfman heifer to Oscar's Velvet and got ten calves that are about a year old now. I sold one of those calves on The Breeder's Connection for 20 thousand. He was unbuckled but three months later we bucked the rest and every one of them bucked," he said.
According to Isbell, he and his partners decided to invest heavily in Oscar and Oscar's Velvet genetics after researching performance records of Oscar Velvet's many successful offspring. "We did research on some of the best bulls and best producers in the industry and we kept coming back to Oscar's Velvet. He was number one from what I was seeing," he said. "The past performance of the bloodline and the number of great producers that have come out of the Oscar bloodlines is unreal."

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