AKRON, Ohio (AP)--In his broad black hat, wide silver buckle, dark denims and embossed leather boots, Denny Thorsell looks like he's always been a cowboy.

But the 67-year-old breeder of championship bucking bulls wasn't born in the saddle.

He started out as a skinny inner-city Cleveland kid so in love with cowboy life that at 14 he ran away from home to become a part of it.

For two decades, Thorsell's journey took him across the United States and Canada to polo fields, race tracks and ranches where some of the finest Quarter Horses in the country are trained.

But these days, home for Thorsell and his wife, Eileen, is Creek Bend Farm--a restored 1870s Burbank home in rural Wayne County, southwest of Akron. The couple raise beef cattle and host bull-riding competitions each summer.

And for the last 10 years, the Thorsells' company, Creek Bend Bucking Bulls, also has been the nemesis of many a rider on competitive bull-riding tours.

Two Thorsell bulls, Freightliner and the Contender, competed at the Professional Bull Riders finals in early October on the Ohio State Fairgrounds during the All American Quarter Horse Congress--the world's largest single breed horse show.

At the end of October, eight Thorsell bulls will buck in the world championship in Las Vegas. That competition is worth $3.2 million in prize money.

Many of the animals beneath the riders also stand to make millions in their lifetime from competitions, breeding and stock sales.

More than a half-century ago, Thorsell got his unlikely start in this business at a Wild West Show.

As a teen, he was taken with the ranching, roping and riding life played out on the pages of magazines he read to pass time on weekly streetcar rides with his grandmother to hear the Cleveland Orchestra.

It wasn't long before he left the streetcars and his family behind for a shot at the next best thing to a home on the range--a spot in the cast of a western show playing the Cuyahoga County Fair.

So, two years before he was old enough to drive, Thorsell found himself on the back of a real, live bull.

"I begged them to let me ride something," he recalled. "They needed somebody for the bull, so I got on."

The fledgling dude hit the dirt in a hurry. His parents were waiting for him and herded him back home.

"I got as far as Canton," Thorsell said with a laugh.

The following year, he attended high school in Cleveland and worked his way up to head pony boy at the Cleveland Zoo for a grand sum of 35 cents an hour.

Then Thorsell was off to Texas for a job with legendary horse trainer Pine Johnson--this time with the blessing of his folks--as long as he promised to finish school by correspondence.

He never did, but, at Johnson's ranch, Thorsell learned valuable lessons for his $5 week plus room-and-board salary.

Eventually he graduated from mucking out stables and milking contrary cows to riding horses. And, finally, there were more bulls.

"When I did ride, I was scared to death of them. I'd get on like this," Thorsell said, holding out two shaking hands in front of him.

"When I got off, I'd vomit. I guess I was trying to prove I was manly or something."

Despite the fear, though, something about the bulls has held Thorsell's attention since then.

"They are awesome, powerful, unique animals," he said. "Every one is different."

But for the next few decades, Thorsell followed his strengths and became a well-regarded Quarter Horse breeder and trainer.

By the 1960s, he grew homesick and returned to Ohio. Eileen Ptak, another Cleveland city kid, met Thorsell at a party where he was the intended fix-up for her cousin.

A few free horseback riding lessons later, it was clear that Denny and Eileen were a couple.

They married in 1969 and have raised five children: Four daughters, two from Thorsell's earlier marriage, and a son.

His wife's previous experience with animals was limited to a pet bird.

When she asked for a baby pig to raise, she said she learned her husband wasn't accustomed to doing anything half way.

"I wanted one cute little piglet and he came home with a dozen!" Eileen Thorsell said recently, still laughing at the memory, "and they got big, so fast that I was happy to get rid of them."

Thorsell briefly owned an equipment company and spent most of the 1970s selling insurance.

He also bred and trained Quarter Horses, and raised Texas longhorns and beef cattle in Granger Township.

Then in the 1980s, the bull-riding bug bit again. This time it was the Thorsell's 12-year-old son, Shawn, who was entranced.

Shawn Thorsell rode bulls through high school and won a full scholarship to an Oklahoma college to join its rodeo team.

His father tried to talk him out of it. His mother prayed for him to fall off. But nothing shook Shawn Thorsell's bull-riding bug.

"'Dad, I can't help it,'" Thorsell remembers his son telling him. "'It's such a rush.'"

Denny Thorsell became a bull breeder. In just 10 years, he has become a stock contractor for the Professional Bull Riding Association, which leases animals for its cross-country tours and world championship.

In addition, he remains a well-respected judge and serves as Congress tri-chairman for the All American Quarter Horse Congress.

"My dad taught me you could do anything with a work ethic," said Shawn Thorsell, 34, who is now a horse trainer in Texas.

"People knew him from the Quarter Horses, and I had lived the rodeo life.

Rodeo is a family, so he became a part of it very quickly.

"The bigger part of why he's done so well is just how my dad is--he's respected by everyone. I really think if he was a politician, he'd be president.

"But he's a cowboy," Thorsell said of his father. "He's one of them."

The thrill of watching a 1,500-pound bull toss a 150-pound rider to the dirt is rapidly gaining popularity well beyond the boundaries of the Lone Star state.

Across the United States, South America and Australia, bull riding has grown from 44 million to 320 million television viewers since 2003.

This year, a former world champion bull sold to a syndicate for $1 million.

Stock contractors feel they're on the ground floor of an exploding business.

Thorsell is busy breeding future competitors back at Creek Bend.

He sells bull semen to other breeders and owns big-name bulls Freightliner, the Contender, Jessie's Ride and Doublevision in partnership with others.

And when this year's championship is over, he'll be back in Wayne County, planning for the next tour and a summer of introducing locals to his long-horned friends at Creek Bend bull rides.

"I respect the West, good guys who wear white hats and all that stuff," Thorsell said. "And the bulls, I've always just liked being around them."