In the Yates family’s time of greatest need, it’s appropriate that a ride on a horse was the saving grace.
It was the summer of 1985, and Kelly Yates suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was kicked in the head by a horse. A week after the incident, following brain surgery and a flight home to her family’s Pueblo property, Kelly still wasn’t able to speak. But she grabbed the arm of her dad, Dick Yates, who then got the attention of her brother, J.D. Yates.
“My dad looked at me and asked, ‘You want to ride?’ And I shook my head yes,” Kelly recalled. “So my dad and brother saddled a horse up, they helped me on, and by foot J.D. led me around the pasture. The reason why I felt I needed to do this is my father had instilled in me that if you fall off, you get back on.
“So until I absolutely couldn’t ride anymore, I was determined to keep going.”
That’s been the Yates’ ethos for decades as they’ve emerged as the most accomplished family in Colorado rodeo history.
In 1984, the year before Kelly’s injury, Dick, J.D. and Kelly became the first and only father-son-daughter trio to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo in the same year. Dick and J.D. went as a team roping tandem and Kelly went as a barrel racer.
That was just one highlight in the Yates’ western way of life that’s seen the family succeed in multiple facets — winning in rodeos, horse training and horse showing. Their all-encompassing talent is on display once again at this year’s National Western Stock Show in Denver, where J.D. and Kelly’s performances are compounded by J.D.’s son Trey Yates, who is a team roper like his dad and grandpa.
Horsemanship has been their entire lives. And in the case of Kelly, it’s been life-saving.
“I believe this to this day that if it wouldn’t have been for the horse, and her wanting to get on it to make that comeback, she might have never been the same,” J.D. Yates said. “She beat all the odds, and that horse had something to do with it.”
The Yates’ rodeo patriarch
Dick Yates grew up in the small town of McClave in southeastern Colorado, where his father was a farmer. He developed an interest in rodeo at a young age and got his Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association card at 20.
At the beginning of his rodeo career in the late 1950s, he roped calves and rode bareback horses. By the early 1960s, he bought a plot in Pueblo off a dirt road called 30¼ Lane, where he still resides. Kelly lives on an adjoining parcel, and J.D. and Trey’s property is around the corner.
Around that time, Dick started team roping, which became the rodeo staple for the Yates men. Dick still ropes, having most recently competed at the World Series of Team Roping last month in Las Vegas. Even in his 80s, he’s won big money at that event, including more than $100,000 in 2018.
“J.D., Trey and Kelly all keep me pumped up to ride and rope,” explained Dick, 87.
In addition to the Yates family making history at the NFR in 1984, another highlight came the year prior, when the trio competed in a special presidential rodeo in Washington for then-President Ronald Reagan. The Yates father-son tandem won in team roping, which earned them buckles presented by Reagan, and Kelly was runner-up in the barrel racing.
But for all his accomplishments in the arena, Dick’s most resonating impact on the sport came in an administrative job during two terms served on the PRCA board. Within that role, Dick led the push to make team roping a standard event at all the major rodeos up to and including the NFR. His efforts also ensured that both the header and the heeler got equal money compared to winners in other events.
“Without efforts like that, there wouldn’t be great cowboys who could make a living doing team roping,” said Trey Yates, part of the generation of cowboys who benefited from that change.
With Dick setting the standard, J.D. and Kelly padded the family tradition, and Trey is in the process of doing so, too.
“There’s a lot of Colorado rodeo families where the members are all talented, but they don’t all rise to the same level that Dick, J.D. and Kelly certainly have,” said Kent Sturman, the director of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and Museum of the American Cowboy.
J.D.’s Hall of Fame career
J.D., who last year was inducted into both the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame, is the most accomplished of the Yates family.
His success started young when, in 1975, he became the youngest PRCA contestant to qualify for the NFR at 15 years and four months old. That record will never be broken — the PRCA since changed its minimum age to 18.
That was the beginning of a storied career.
At the University of Southern Colorado, he won two titles in team roping at the College National Finals Rodeo. As a pro, he’s made 21 appearances in team roping at the NFR, winning the average (best cumulative time in the event over the 10 rounds) there in 2002. He’s made 11 more appearances at the National Steer Roping Finals, winning the average there in 2008. Plus, he’s won 14 Mountain States Circuit titles.
Not bad for a cowboy who, as a youngster following Dick around to rodeos, would rope unsuspecting passersby behind the chutes. Sometimes, older cowboys would pay him a quarter to do so.
“You could get me to do about anything as long as it had to do with a rope,” J.D. recalled with a chuckle. “If they were going to pay me for it, hell, I was all in.”
Outside of rodeo, J.D.’s established himself as a prominent horse showman.
He’s claimed 47 world championships in the AQHA with five Superhorses, the organization’s highest honor. That parallel success opposite his rodeo feats stems from the Yates’ family business, Hitch Rack Performance Horses, which is operated out of their Pueblo property.
For J.D., his individual accolades are topped by what his family has accomplished together, first in 1984 at the NFR, then in 2016 when he and Trey were team ropers together at Cheyenne Frontier Days. The father-son performance in that event helped J.D. capture the prestigious rodeo’s all-around title.
“In 1984, that was probably the best year of our life as a family because we got to do it as a family, got to be successful as a family, and we got to enjoy it as a family,” said J.D., 64. “That stands out, and it’s also hard to top roping with my son in Cheyenne. All the accolades in rodeoing would never top those two experiences.”
Kelly’s barrel-racing longevity
While J.D. emerged as a local rodeo legend, his older sister Kelly also carved out an impressive career.
She made her professional debut in barrel racing at age 13. She’s qualified for the NFR four times and came close to winning a world title in 2001. She was leading by about $30,000 heading into the NFR but her horse fell down in the first go-round to finish second in the world standings.
“I was very devastated,” recalled Kelly, now 66. “To be winning the world by that large of a sum of money at that time going into NFR, then fall down and fall off — I tried to stay on, and it didn’t happen. After that, I had no want-to or try to even make the NFR again.”
But just as Kelly rebounded from her traumatic brain injury several decades earlier, she found the resolve to keep going, appearing at the NFR again two years later. Both of those NFR qualifications at the turn of the century were on Firewater Fiesta, which Kelly describes as “the horse of a lifetime.” The horse was a gift to her from her parents.
Firewater Fiesta netted Kelly more than $800,000 in winnings, despite retiring relatively early after injuries plagued the mare following the fall at the 2001 NFR. Firewater Fiesta earned the AQHA/PRCA Barrel Horse of the Year award twice.
Like Dick and J.D., Kelly is intent on continuing to compete as long as she can, age be damned. She and Dick are under consideration this year to join J.D. in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. The Class of 2025 will be announced by the end of April.
“I love riding colts, I love going to the rodeos,” Kelly said. “I’m still very competitive — I did well at the last circuit finals, did well at the Denver qualifier (for the National Western Stock Show). I’m going to keep doing it while I can, while I enjoy it. I don’t want it to be work anymore. It’s got to be fun, and it still is.”
The Yates’ rodeo future
Now, Trey represents the Yates’ next rodeo generation.
The 29-year-old burst onto the scene in 2018, when he won a title in the College National Finals Rodeo as a senior at Casper College. That same year he won the average in his NFR debut and finished third in the world standings.
He’s been back to the NFR two more times since, and he says his family’s rich rodeo legacy continues to push him forward to a goal that no Yates has yet achieved: a world title.
“When you have people with goals all around you, it makes you strive to be better all the time,” Trey said. “That’s just how my family is wired. It’s made me want to reach my full potential.”
Trey is a Pueblo County High School alum like his dad and aunt. He’s had his fair share of adversity early in his career. Four times in the last six years he’s finished just outside the top 15 of the world standings, narrowly missing out on qualifying for the NFR.
He’s aiming to get back to the big stage this year but knows that no matter what happens, he’ll always have what’s most important: a rodeo family who knows how to navigate the tough times the lifestyle brings.
“I’ve had weak moments when I get out of line, do things I shouldn’t, maybe react negatively when I don’t get the desired outcome,” Trey said. “Ultimately I can be emotional, but I always keep in mind that no matter the success we’ve had, we all got each other’s back. That’s one thing I’m very blessed with in rodeoing — I have the best support system I could possibly have.”