By Alex Riley, Special to ProRodeo.com
Keenan Hayes kept his prep work ahead of Friday’s bareback ride at the Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo in Vernal, Utah, very simple.
Hayes pulled up videos of the last two cowboys to ride Powder River Rodeo bucking horse Misdemeanor, looking to see what insight he could gleam. It didn’t take long for the Hayden, Colo., native to figure out what he needed to do.
“It kind of looked like she wanted to be good. The last two guys that had been on her kind of missed her neck and let her get long,” Hayes said. “So, I just tried to mark her out and hit her hard and it ended up working out.”
For Hayes, the 90-point ride was good enough to win the rodeo and collect $4,759 in earnings. It also continued a string of money-worthy rides that has the defending world champion right where he wants to be – atop the PRCA | RAM World Standings heading into the summer schedule.
Since the calendar flipped from May to June, Hayes has been piling up positive outcomes to keep his spot at the front of the bareback riding pack. To start the month, he won the Home of the Navajo PRCA Rodeo, sparking the run he’s currently on.
Hayes has competed in nine rodeos so far, picking up money at eight of them. In all, he’s earned more than $19,000 at the halfway point of June, making him the first bareback rider to clear $100,000 in earnings this season and keeping Hayes about $5,000 ahead of Cooper Cooke in the world standings.
During the winter, Hayes built his ledger by securing a lot of money at some of the biggest indoor events, including Denver, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston. Aside from those more notable rodeos, he kept his schedule fairly light, opting for a few higher-paying rodeos in the winter before kicking things up in the spring.
That’s left Hayes in a good spot for the summer. His rodeo count is still fairly low, allowing him to ride just about wherever and whenever he wants the rest of the way.
And for a guy trying to become the first back-to-back world bareback riding champion since Kaycee Feild in 2020 and 2021, staying consistent and riding on the regular is exactly the approach he wants to take.
“I’ve just been going and getting on everything. I’m kind of just trying out everything and it’s been working good in some places and some places not so much,” Hayes said. “I’ve kind of been saving all my rodeo count through this whole winter, so I can kind of go out to all these little deals and try them out to see if they work out – and sometimes they do.”
Other winners at the $199,539 Playoff Series Rodeo were all-around cowboy Paden Bray ($2,498); steer wrestler Talon Roseland (3.6 seconds); team ropers Kolton Schmidt/Landen Glenn and Nelson Wyatt/Jonathan Torres (4.5 seconds); saddle bronc riders Ryder Sanford (87 points on Powder River Rodeo’s Toss Across) and Ryder Wright (87 points on Powder River Rodeo’s Party Planner); tie-down roper Shane Hanchey (7.9 seconds); barrel racer Leslie Smalygo (17.05 seconds); breakaway roper Braylee Shepherd (2.1 seconds); and bull rider Trevor Reiste (87.5 points on Powder River Rodeo’s Banger).