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Professional bareback rider Keenan Hayes rides during a rodeo at the Denver Coliseum at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Before becoming a world bareback champion, Keenan Hayes was a rebel rider on his family’s farm in rural Hayden.
“When I was about 10 years old, my dad bought me a few ponies that were outlaws, so I started riding pony broncs,” Hayes recalled. “I rode them and rode them all the time. Sometimes, when no one was home, I would ride them and do it myself.
“It probably wasn’t the best idea, but I did it because (rodeo) is about how much guts and effort you have.” If this is what you really want, put your head down and go for it. It has to be realized. I shouldn’t have been riding alone, but if everyone was off work, I’d get them (in the bucking chute), put on (the gear), open the gate myself and try to flank them. . Usually I would ride it and get off cleanly, but sometimes I would get stepped on and I would be lying alone in the dirt and be like, “Oh, shit.” ”
Fast forward nearly a decade, and a lonely moment on the family farm foreshadowed Hayes’ rodeo greatness.
In 2023, Hayes became the first rookie to win the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association bareback world title and the first Colorado rider since Bruce Ford in 1987. He set a single-season event earnings record with $434,050 and also won the Rookie of the Association title. That year he won the Mountain States Circuit title and the National Finals Rodeo average title.
In other words, the 21-year-old’s 2023 season comes one year after setting the PRCA single-season allowance record of $108,568, making him one of the sport’s preeminent stars. And he doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon.
“He’s not upset about anything,” Keenan’s sister, Caitlin Hayes, explained. “Keenan started competing in amateur rodeos when he was 15 or 16 years old and won the (Colorado Professional Rodeo Association) finals, riding horses and kicking butt against 20-year-olds. He was a step or two ahead of where he needed to be. That’s when we knew what he was going to be.”
Hayes is the top local rodeo athlete to watch at this year’s National Western Stock Show in Denver, advancing to next week’s bareback semifinals after another solid ride Friday afternoon. . At last year’s NWSS, Hayes won Colorado vs. Worlds.
He recognized the potential in the rodeo-obsessed kid from Hayden who also developed into an elite wrestler, finishing fourth at 138 pounds at the CHSAA Class 2A state tournament as a freshman.
“I noticed a long time ago (in elementary and middle school) that there was a big thing about Keenan,” said Casey Colletti, one of Hayes’ first riding coaches and now a mentor and friend. wanted to be great in everything he did.” “Every night before he went to bed, he did 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups (and 100 pull-ups, too). And every morning before he went to school, he did 100 of each. He was very confident because he was such a good wrestler. And the way he rode the spar board and the bucking machine was really great…(When I was coaching him) he was like a little sponge.”
Hayes quit wrestling and football after his freshman year and transferred from Hayden High School to online school after breaking his jaw during a bullfight. It was the most serious rodeo injury Hayes had endured, worse than the staples in his head and a broken collarbone.
All four bones in his lower jaw pushed through his tongue, requiring long-term hospitalization and preventing him from attending school. At that point, instead of cashing in his rodeo chips, he shoved them all into the center of the table. Eventually, he graduated from high school a year early and began acting full-time on the amateur rodeo circuit at the age of 17.
“I could tell (the broken jaw) had me confused for a while,” Caitlin Hayes said. “And two weeks before that, he got caught with a naked horse and drugs around the arena and was sent to the hospital, where he had to get his confidence back. But after that there was no stopping him. There wasn’t.”
Hayes stopped riding bulls in 2021 to focus on bareback riding full-time and stay fit for the latter field.
“I’ve never seen a father happier than when I called him and told him I was quitting bull riding,” Donnie Hayes said. “People had been telling him for years, ‘Cut that bull rope,’ and he finally saw the light.” Burn it. He hit a bull, got hurt and lost everything, which is too much for a bareback rider. ” But he had to compete of his own volition, and he did so after winning his only professional rodeo, Taurus, at Lake Havasu. ”
Although Hayes loved bull riding, he admits that turning all his attention to bareback “was a really good idea.” His travel partner and fellow bareback rider Wyatt Denny said it’s a sport he was born for.
Denny said Hayes, who is 5-foot-6 and weighs 160 pounds, has a unique riding style that is almost upright, meaning he doesn’t have to lie down as much on the horse. . “This takes a lot of power away from the horse because he’s trying to go back to throw you forward,” Denny said.
“He’s very loyal to his rig and never criticizes his rig. He can ride a hopper or a big, powerful prancing horse and never takes his butt off the rig…he His long legs make him more mobile, and his upper body and arms are very short and stocky (horses) You can’t shake him. He’s like a flea.
“I always teased him and said, ‘When you were a kid, what did your parents do to you (to get the perfect height for sports)?'” He always said, ‘Oh. , I drank goat milk,” he jokingly retorts. So now I also drink goat milk every day. ”
Hayes has impeccable technique and a gold buckle, but his overall profile still eclipses that of the second most recent Rookie of the Year, Rocker Steiner. The Texas rider won that honor in 2022, when Hayes was still competing with permission. Both are elite talents, but their personalities are completely opposite.
Hayes has had to rise to the upper echelons of barebacking and has a humble, blue-collar approach to the sport, but Steiner has been in the spotlight since the first day he stepped onto the field.
Steiner comes from a prestigious rodeo family. His grandfather Bobby was the PRCA Bull Riding World Champion in 1973. His father, Sid, was the 2002 PRCA Steer Wrestling World Champion. The 20-year-old rocker was an accomplished wakeboarder before pursuing bareback riding, and is known as a showman with a rock star vibe and fierce passion. This attitude will help him win the 9,500 at the 2022 National Finals Rodeo. A dollar fine was imposed.
Denny believes Hayes would have ousted Steiner for Rookie of the Year honors if he had decided to purchase a PRCA card in 2022 (so his earnings would have counted towards the world and rookie rankings). are doing.
“He would have spanked me,” Denny said.
The contrast between the two top riders in the sport is clear, but so is Hayes’ desire to leave Steiner and everyone else in his dust. After finishing ninth at the 2023 NWSS, a title at his home state’s biggest rodeo is on his mind this January.
And Hayes, currently ranked fourth on the 2024 bareback money list, is eager to add another gold buckle to his budding trophy collection. What is his ultimate goal? His goal is to overtake recently retired Utah cowboy Casey Field, who holds the record for six world championships.
If Field and Hayes’ beer bets throughout last season were any indication, with the two making friendly bets on who would get the higher rider scores at various rodeos, the legend said Hayes’ I know my abilities.
“I hope we can continue to get to the finals every year and win five more world titles and give old Casey Field the gold,” Hayes said. “I want to at least try to achieve more than that and be the best bareback rider ever. That’s definitely the end goal.”
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