When the Clayton family took a short video of hail pummeling their home and swimming pool on County Road 371 near Bunyan they had no idea that their bull, Drago would enter the frame.
They also had no idea of the notoriety that would follow.
Chances are you have seen a video that has been circulated throughout the U.S. and now in other countries. (If you haven’t, we invite you to head over to the Dublin Citizen Facebook page.)
Drago, who is a polled hereford bull, has only been with Cindy and Gary Clayton for a couple of months and is being used for breeding purposes on their ranch. Since he is a new bull, the Claytons had him separated from the rest of the bulls so he wouldn’t fight. As a bull named after the character from “Rocky IV” who fights the lead character, perhaps that decision was on point.
On Wednesday, April 26 weather warnings had been issued over and over again about the possibility of large hail in the area. The Claytons had been paying attention to the warnings and around 5 p.m. Gary said the skies turned dark.
“I’m used to West Texas thunderstorms but I’ve never been a part of something like this,” he said. “I’ve never seen it that dark at 5 p.m. before.”
The family credits Pete Delkus, a meteorologist with WFAA channel 8 in DFW for the weather warnings.
“We knew something was going to happen. You could feel it,” he said. “Delkus said it would.”
As the storm approached, Gary said you could literally hear the hail coming, a phenomenon meteorologists call ‘hail roar.’
“It was like a herd of buffalo being chased by indians,” he said.
As the hail started, Gary, Cindy and their daughter Candace Clayton stepped out onto their porch to watch the hail fall.
Gary made three different videos as the hail progressed and honestly had no intention of showing Drago, but he hurried across the frame to find shelter in some nearby trees.
The family decided to send the video via Twitter to Delkus, who almost immediately retweeted it.
The video took off from there and has been shared around 100 million times in a variety of ways (as best as the family can figure out).
It has even been shared on a news channel in Spain that was interested in Drago’s story.
Though not their main income, the family dapples in breeding hereford show steers and have multiple cattle.
As a retired county extension agent, Gary is all too familiar just how devastating large hail storms can be to livestock and agriculture.
“Of the world’s cattle, 99% are kept in pastures and most of them will not go into shelters like barns during hail storms. It’s too loud,” he said.
Fortunately, Drago was headed to some trees for safety and got there about two seconds after the video shut off. He, nor any of the other cattle or animals, were harmed by the hail.
“We do have plans to build a shelter in his pen,” he said.
Though the Clayton’s were lucky in terms of livestock and windows, they will have to get new roofs on their home, barn and cabin.
For those wanting to remember Drago and the large hail storm, the Claytons are currently working on merchandise with the bull’s image on it.