Tyler Kippes’ silver cross necklace dangled in front of his vest and his blue button-down shirt, which covered the 6-inch scar spanning his chest. Then he nodded his head, and the chute in the Denver Coliseum opened.
From there, Kippes let the initial chapter of his comeback script write itself.
In his first rodeo following open-heart surgery last March after a bull’s horn ruptured his tricuspid valve, Kippes stole the show on Wednesday at the National Western Stock Show. He ripped off a textbook ride during the matinee rodeo, then leapt from the bull named Ice Man and tumbled to the dirt.
When he sprang to his feet, the cowboy who grew up in Eaton pointed to the roaring crowd and smiled wide. His 83-point ride led the round. Kippes, whose future in rodeo was in jeopardy last spring, was back.
“It’s so easy to go through life, and especially in this sport, and feel like you’re entitled to success,” Kippes said. “But (Wednesday) was a blessing to be on the back of the bucking chutes again, at the rodeo that started this journey for me. It was excitement, but it was also gratitude and appreciation, first and foremost.
“… And this time around, I have a lot more to prove to myself than anyone else.”
‘A true tough-as-nails cowboy’
The blunt force trauma to his chest at Rodeo Austin could’ve killed the 22-year-old, and it left his fledgling career hanging in the balance.
Dr. William Kessler, who performed Kippes’ surgery at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin, called the rider’s ability to return to rodeo “a very rare case.” That’s because Kessler was able to repair the tricuspid valve instead of replacing it with an artificial valve, which would’ve ended Kippes’ career.
In the ride where he got hurt, Kippes was bucked off a couple of seconds in, and as he fell, the bull raised its head and its horn impacted him directly in the right side of the chest. Kippes briefly stood up from the dirt, had difficulty breathing, and then collapsed and lost consciousness.
When he underwent surgery four days after being hurt, he slipped under anesthesia, unsure if Kessler would be able to repair his tricuspid valve so that he could ride again. So when he woke up and got the good news, bull riding was the first thing that popped into his mind.
“Going into surgery, I was telling everyone that I didn’t really give two craps about (returning to rodeo) and that I wasn’t thinking about it,” Kippes said. “But deep down I knew I needed it, and without a doubt, I was praying to get back to it.”
The heart surgery was the most serious of a string of injuries that Kippes has endured since getting his Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association card at 18.
He had two hip surgeries, and then suffered three more injuries in 2025 amid a career season that saw him shoot up to as high as 10th in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association standings. He slipped a disc in his back in last year’s National Western Stock Show en route to placing fifth, then broke his jaw at a rodeo in Guthrie, Oklahoma, on the same ride where he posted a career-high 90-point score.
“I get a phone call from him and he goes, ‘Well, I just went 90 points,’ and I started hooping and hollering,” recalled Kippes’ fiancée, Blaize Deere. “Then he said, ‘But, um, I’m missing some teeth and my jaw is broken.’
“… He drove (about five hours) home through the night, unmedicated, and when he pulled up to the house, it looked like his entire face had been stung by a million bees. It was huge from the swelling of the broken jaw. I rushed him to the hospital, but like a true tough-as-nails cowboy, he was pretty unbothered.”
That anecdote sums up Kippes’ determination to ascend in a sport in which he’s shown signs of greatness from a young age.
Getting back in the chutes
Kippes’ introduction to bull riding came at 5, sitting up high inside the Denver Coliseum, watching the National Western Stock Show. He recalled “munching on cotton candy and kind of being bored to death with it all” — until the bull riders took the arena in the final event.
“It was like the world slowed down for 30 minutes,” Kippes said. “I was entranced. And in that moment, I decided that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”
Years of sacrifice followed. He and his mother moved from Evergreen to Eaton to be around more opportunities to pursue the sport in northern Colorado. His mom placed an ad on Craigslist to find Kippes’ first coach. Nicknamed “Mighty Mouse” as a youth because of his proclivity to ride bulls all day, Kippes and his mom moved again, this time to Stephenville, Texas — a.k.a. the “Cowboy Capital of the World” — five years ago to further immerse the cowboy in the sport.
Along the way, Kippes leaned on his Christian faith while emerging as a star in the Colorado Pro Rodeo Association, winning the CPRA bull riding title and rookie of the year in the same season as a 16-year-old.
“When he was still living in Colorado, one time he set his phone up in his arena and got on a practice bull all by himself,” said Taylor Toves, a longtime friend and fellow bull rider. “He flanked the bull, got on him, pulled his own rope, opened the gate on his own. He’s the only one that I know personally that has ever done that without any help. That’s how invested he is in this sport and that kind of try has led (to his ascension).”
Hence, why as Kippes recovered from open-heart surgery, there was never any question if he was going to ride again, even if some in his life wanted him to step away from the sport.
While fundraising from the rodeo community netted Kippes about $30,000 for medical bills, helping him avoid bankruptcy, Kippes maintained the mindset that he’s “sacrificed way too much at this point to throw in the towel now.” He got back on the bucking barrel in October and started riding practice bulls in November.
“The day he got back (to live action), he got on a practice bull and rode the snot out of that sucker,” said Mana Kaia, a former bull rider who is Kippes’ mentor. “It was like he didn’t miss a lick.
“… But that’s how Tyler operates. His mindset is there’s not a bull in the world that he can’t ride. His dream is to nod his head in the yellow bucking chutes at the National Finals Rodeo. If he can stay healthy, he could make the NFR every year.”
Toves echoed that prediction, noting that Kippes’ incessant training growing up — which likely led to the hip issue that he now has to manage — drilled impeccable technique into him.
“He keeps good bend in his legs and he rides on his legs a lot, and he gets out over bulls, which takes a lot of power away from them,” Toves said. “And when you do that, you can ride them no matter what they’re doing.”
After dominating Ice Man on Wednesday with that form in the matinee’s rousing final ride, Kippes was bucked off in the evening session. But his high first-ride score was enough to advance him into Saturday’s semifinals.
There, Kippes expects to continue his re-ascent at the rodeo that first made him fall in love with the sport, and then ushered his return to the arena this week following a life-threatening injury.
“It’s not a hope to be there (in Sunday’s short round),” Kippes said. “I darn sure will be, and you can mark my words on that.”
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