PUEBLO — Pueblo native J.D. Yates is among this year's inductees into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. He's been competing in rodeo for close to 50 years.
A big part of his family's success in rodeo is because of the horses they ride.
Yates had a long, successful ProRodeo career. He went to the National Finals Rodeo for the first time at age 15 and competed with his dad, Dick, in team roping.
"You have to have a love for anything to be successful in it and it just happened to be what I fell in love with, you know, and... I love the competition," said Yates. "I love the idea of riding and training horses."
Yates has been back to the National Finals Rodeo another 20 times. He's now 64, and he still competes in team roping.
Yates picks and chooses around a dozen rodeos a year, and he's riding horses everyday. When not on the road, he's training for performance horses.
Along with his rodeo success, he's behind multiple American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) champions.
Now a days, Yates spends more time training horses than going rodeos, but he says he has no intention of retiring from rodeo anytime soon.
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