“I was put on a horse the day I came home from the hospital,” said Kelly Yates, a barrel racer and a member of what is arguably Colorado’s most accomplished rodeo family. The Pueblo native began racing professionally at 13, and in the five decades since, Yates has built an extraordinary resume . The Yates family on their Pueblo property in August 2011. From left, Kelly, Trey, Jan, Dick and J.D. (Photo by Bryan Oller/The Denver Post) High on that highlight reel: In 1984, Kelly, her father Dick, and her brother J.D. became the first — and still the 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 duo, while Kelly qualified in barrel racing. The family also competed in a special presidential rodeo in Washington, D.C., for former President Ronald Reagan. Barrel racing, the event that has defined so much of Yates’ life, is a race against time. A horse-and-rider team threads a tight cloverleaf pattern around three barrels with both speed and razor-sharp precision. It’s one of the most popular events at the National Western Stock Show, where Yates has competed for decades. From the stands, barrel racing may look simple — sprint in, turn three barrels, sprint out. But the simplicity is deceptive. What spectators don’t see are the years of groundwork, conditioning and trust-building required to teach a horse to run barrels at all, let alone at the elite level where times are separated by mere hundredths of a second. Yates, 67, was a top performer at the 2025 National Western Stock Show Rodeo, winning the first performance’s barrel racing event with a time of 14.81 seconds on her gray mare, Fiestanozashezfamous, aka Gucci. She also tied for first in the second round of the Denver qualifier with a time of 16.38 seconds. Over the course of her career, Kelly has qualified for the NFR four times and collected more belt buckles, saddles and trophies than she can easily count. Kelly Yates competes in the summer Pro Rodeo Tour finale in Dallas in 2002. Yates turned in a time of 12.4 seconds on her AQHA horse of the year, Firewater Fiesta. Yates won the barrel-racing title and $28,000, which put her in first place in the world standings heading into the National Finals rodeo. (David Jennings, Special to The Denver Post) Still, when you ask Kelly about her proudest moment, she doesn’t mention world standings or NFR qualifications. She goes straight to Valentine’s Day 1999, when her parents handed her the papers for Firewater Fiesta, the mare she calls her “once-in-a-lifetime horse.” Firewater Fiesta’s story begins with trauma. As a young horse in Oklahoma, she’d been trapped near an encroaching grass fire while chained to a horse walker, which provides animals with mobility while keeping them secure. She broke free, but injured her nose; the incident left her deeply fearful. The legendary barrel horse was skittish, scared of just about everything. Yates was incredibly patient with her, spending countless hours doing groundwork and slowly earning her trust. Their bond grew strong. In many ways, the two understood each other. Yates knew what it meant to rebuild trust in her own body after trauma. In 1985 at a rodeo, she suffered a brain injury after being kicked in the head by a horse. A week later and following brain surgery, she hadn’t regained her speech but signaled to her father and brother that she wanted to get back in the saddle. Her dad asked her if she wanted to ride; she nodded, and her brother J.D. guided her around the pasture. Kelly Yates and her backup ride Fancy in a stall at National Western Stock Show in January 2002. (John Epperson/The Denver Post) “I remember when I was little, my dad said: ‘You fall off, you get back on,’” Yates said. “And that always stuck to my mind.” It’s a philosophy she leaned on again and again — while healing herself, and while teaching Firewater Fiesta that the world could be safe again. “As far as running barrels, she took to it so fast it was scary,” Yates remembered. Despite retiring early because of injuries stemming from a fall at the 2001 NFR, Firewater Fiesta still earned Kelly more than $800,000 over her career. “She built my house,” Yates says from her home in Pueblo. The mare passed away in 2016 at age 22, with accolades that include the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association’s honor of Horse With The Most Heart. For Yates, the same grit that carried her through injuries and setbacks continues to drive her into the arena. Time has tested her, but it hasn’t tamed her. “You know, it hasn’t been an easy ride,”  Yates said, “but I just love competition and I love doing what I’m doing.” Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox. ...read more read less