DRUMMOND (AP) -- The buzz of a football night was starting here Friday in the hours before the Trojans met Twin Bridges for the Western C title.

Television cameras, yet another first in Drummond's record-setting string of gridiron victories, were lugged into place on the hillside in Edwards Gulch.

On the east end of town, you could drive across the tracks and under a gate post framed by the silhouettes of two vertical bucking bulls -- And under most radars in this home of World Famous Bullshippers.

''Most of the ranchers know what we're doing because we're in the cattle business,'' Rod Conat said as he slogged through a bull pen behind the C&G Rodeo Livestock arena. ''But as far as the majority of the people in town, you ask them what we're doing over here, they'd say, 'I don't really know.'''

The region is long known for its Hereford and Angus cattle, and for the railroad docks where those animals are loaded and sent off to become choice prime ribs and steak. Now Conat, his wife, Bonnie, and partner Steven Graveley of Helmville are quietly building a breeding business that puts Drummond on the map for a different kind of bull -- the one that bucks.

Sequestered in a pen apart from the 100 or so bulls on the muddy grounds are Spitfire, Aces High and Zipper Twister. The Conats and Graveley, who've hauled bulls some 60,000 miles this year to faraway stops on the Professional Bull Riders tour, are gearing up to take the three to Las Vegas next week.

There Spitfire, a hulking deep red 3-year-old, will buck in the ABBI Classic world finals. It's for the top 50 bulls on what's called the Challenger tour -- one step below the big leagues of the PBR, the Built Ford Tough series.

Spitfire is ranked 24th going in. Should he buck in Vegas like his owners think he can, C&G stands to shuffle out of town with a share of the $450,000 purse -- maybe even the quarter-million dollar first prize.

Aces High and Zipper Twister, two smaller bulls, qualified for the ABBI Futurity among the top 100 2-year-olds. Their stakes aren't as high -- $50,000 for the first-place share of a $150,000 pot.

At the same time, the Challenger tour's top 45 riders will be competing for separate purses decided by different judges.

It's the culmination of a remarkable 2006 for the six-year-old enterprise. Last year, the Conats and Graveley, who handles the breeding and cow side of the operation in Helmville, qualified their first bull for the finals. They got Tumble Creek in under the wire by trucking him to the last qualifying event - in North Carolina.

''It was a 38-hour drive,'' Rod Conat said. ''He finished fourth or fifth out of 48 bulls and gathered up enough points to make it, but he also traveled 2,200 miles one way to get there. To me, that was like winning the world finals, only the money wasn't there.''

This year, C&G qualified seven bulls for Vegas. They're taking just the three, since the entry fees are steep -- $2,500 for the ''old'' bulls (ages 3 and 4), $1,400 for the 2-year-olds.

''Hopefully we selected the right ones,'' Conat said.

The goal, he added, is to supply a steady stream of 4-year-old bulls to the PBR's major league tour.

''If we get 10 percent of our calf crop per year to buck Built Ford Tough at the age of 4, we think we've accomplished what we went after,'' Conat said. ''This year we're probably 3 percent. That's not what we want, but we feel in another two years that 10 percent is going to be there.''

ABBI stands for American Bucking Bull Inc. The organization promotes the grooming of young bucking bulls for the big time through rigorous breeding standards that include DNA testing. Conat said his is one of eight ABBI-registered operations in Montana.

The only bulls older than 4 in the pens at Drummond are a couple kept around for pasture breeding. The cows on Graveley's ranch in Helmville are bred through artificial insemination.

''We do a lot of embryo transplant. That's a big thing,'' Conat said. ''When you're paying a thousand dollars for one straw of semen, you've got to utilize it.''

Rod forked hay between slats of highway guardrail fence into a pen of proven 3-year-old buckers. He and Bonnie clicked off the proud parentage.

There's a Bodacious bull there. Here's a grandson of Yellowjacket. That's a son of Mossy Oak Mudslinger.

''These bulls get in your blood,'' Conat said.

In Phoenix this year, Bonnie had coaxed Spitfire to the fence of his pen when H.D. Page of Texas, one of the top PBR contractors, happened by.

''I'm rubbing (Spitfire) and talking to him and H.D. Page comes up and says, 'Are all your bulls pets like that?''' she recalled with a chuckle. ''He's a pretty laid-back bull.''

Bull riding is a weekly event in Drummond. Every Wednesday night in the summer and Sunday afternoon when school starts, the Conats open their arena to anyone who wants to ride bulls. Young riders come from Missoula, from Helena, from Twin Bridges and Bozeman. Conat charges them nothing.

''It's good practice for the kids and it's good practice for the bulls,'' Rod Conat said.

Both Graveley and Rod Conat were bull riders in their younger days. Graveley rode on the pro circuit, and he taught Conat the ropes.

Nine or 10 years ago, the seeds of their current business were sown.

''I started purchasing semen long before we had cows, not knowing I was purchasing some of the most sought-after semen in the world right now,'' Conat said. ''We've got semen that's no longer in existence. That was actually our start. He had a few stock cows. I went out and purchased a few rodeo cows.''

They did it at a time when the business of rodeo bull breeding was taking off. The ABBI was just starting up.

At first, Bonnie Conat cast a wary eye at the enterprise.

''I was kind of going, are you serious?'' she said with a laugh.

Now she's in it up to the tops of her mud boots, feeding, doctoring, hauling and keeping the books.

''She's the most important partner I've got,'' Rod said. ''While I'm off trucking logs, she's here doing everything that needs to be done.''

It's a complex business, Conat agreed. But the rewards are immense.

''When you're a kid growing up, you want to be a world champion bull rider,'' he said. ''Well, I rode bulls for 16 years and it never happened. But when you're standing behind the bucking chute and your bull wins first place, there's a little piece of the puzzle that comes together. Maybe we couldn't be world champions by riding a bull, but by breeding a bull up, who knows?''