COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Commotion, one of the greatest bucking horses of all time, highlights a star-studded, 12-member class that will be enshrined in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo., Aug. 3.
“I think this is great,” said stock contractor Bennie Beutler. “With Commotion, he either bucked them off or they would win first on him. He was one of the horses who liked to buck, and he never had a bad day.”
The rest of the 2019 ProRodeo Hall of Fame class that was announced Monday consists of stock contractors Elra Beutler and his son, Jiggs; four-time world champion team roping heeler Allen Bach (1979, 1990, 1995, 2006); two-time world champion steer wrestler Dean Gorsuch (2006, 2010); world champion bull rider Doug “Droopy” Brown (1969); world champion bareback rider Larry Peabody (1984); notable Jerome Robinson; the Cody (Wyo.) Stampede Rodeo; contract personnel Tommy Lucia; and three Women’s Professional Rodeo Association inductees – barrel racers Jimmie Munroe and Sammy Thurman Brackenberry and notable Florence Youree.
In addition to the 13 inductees, Guy Elliott, a former arena director for the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo in Denver and the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo and countless others, will receive the Ken Stemler Pioneer Award, which honors individuals in recognition of their groundbreaking, innovative ideas and forward thinking.
Commotion passed away Sept. 7, 2016, at the Beutler & Son ranch near Elk City, Okla. He was 25.
Commotion, a 1,300-pound bay stallion, who stood at 16.1 hands, was voted the top bareback horse at his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in 1997. He went on to win the next three Bareback Riding Horse of the Year awards, 1998-2000, when he was part of the Beutler and Gaylord Rodeo Company string. He made 10 consecutive trips (1997-2006) to the Wrangler NFR before retiring in his prime at the 2006 Wrangler NFR at the age of 15. Two rounds were won on him at the Wrangler NFR. Commotion has sired more than 70 horses who have gone on to compete at the Wrangler NFR. His daughter Killer Bee was named the Top Saddle Bronc at the Wrangler NFR in 2013 and 2014 and was runner up for Saddle Bronc of the Year in 2015. Another daughter of his is Wound Up, the 2016 Top Saddle Bronc at the Wrangler NFR and the 2017 Saddle Bronc of the Year.
“Besides him being such a great bucking horse for us, he was also a breeder, and that doesn’t happen very much,” Beutler said.
In August 2013, artist T.D. Kelsey’s larger-than-life-statue of Commotion was dedicated at the National Route 66 Museum Complex in Elk City, Okla. When Commotion wasn’t at rodeos, he lived at the Beutler’s Ranch in Elk City, and he was buried next to the statue.
“He was an outlaw,” Beutler said about Commotion. “We never did halter break him. He was very independent, and he strutted around like he was king of the road. After he was in bareback riding for seven or eight years, we put him one year in the bronc riding, and he was really good, but then we went back to bareback riding because that’s what he was best at. He just bucked hard every time, and cowboys were only able to ride him about half the time, and when he would buck somebody off, he would prance around the arena. He knew he was special.”...
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