Texas couple's longhorn nears world record for with over 7.5-foot horn span

PERRYTON, Texas (KVII) — Jason and Barbara Pshigoda started off wanting to fill their pasture with various animals.

Barbara says she knew she wanted longhorns in the mix.

"I just always thought that having longhorns was the most Texas thing you could do and so I just wanted one to have one. I knew nothing about genetics, color options, anything just wanted a longhorn in our pasture and it kind of grew more into a project," said Barbara.

They bought a baby longhorn, that Barbara described as a lanky Great Gane. They entered Jest A Cowboy into competitions to see how it compared to others.

"We had people tell us you should cull that bull, stop bringing him back, he placed dead last in every event we took him to,” Barbara said.

But they ignored that advice and decided to let him grow some more. His horns were getting longer than any other one they owned.

So, Jason started checking a website that tracks the measurements of all the black and white longhorns in the world to see how Jest A Cowboy did against the ones on the list.

"And so, we're always following that website and that's how you're keeping records of where he falls with all the others,” said Jason.

An underdog in the industry when Jest A Cowboy returned to the competition scene the reactions were vastly different than before.

"When we brought him back and he started winning, people were like, 'Where did you get that bull? Who's that bull?' I'm like, it's the same one you told me to get rid of last year and that was kind of neat to watch grow into what he has,” said Barbara.

Currently, Jest A Cowboy’s tip-to-tip span is over seven and a half feet long and is just shy of three inches from breaking the record for black and white longhorns.

If you'd like to follow his progress, you can head over tohttp://www.lazyjlonghorns.comand see the rest of Jest A Cowboy's herd athttp://www.3pranchtx.com.