GOODING — Paden Bray can’t stop talking about football. Even here, outside his trailer and next to his horses, hours before Saturday night’s performance at the Gooding Pro Rodeo. Paden Bray, a roper who competes in tie-down roping and team roping, seeks his fourth National Finals Rodeo qualification.
It’s a fitting analogy, he said, to explain his occupation. Like a quarterback tossing to a wide receiver, or for Bray, a roper tossing one to catch a calf in the tie-down roping and a steer in the team roping. Or like a veteran quarterback, in Bray’s case, a seven-year pro roper with three National Finals Rodeo qualifications near the bubble of another as he sits 26th in the team roping heeler standings.
The top 15 in each event qualify for the NFR, set for December in Las Vegas. A sold-out crowd packed the stands for the final night of the Gooding Pro Rodeo. “There is a lot of beauty in the maturity because you aren’t gonna make the same mistake,” Bray told the Times-News .
“It is all right to make a mistake, as long as you learn from it and move on that is where it really makes a difference is when that set up comes and you don’t make that mistake again.” Gooding Pro Rodeo's Wednesday night performance featured talent from world champions to National Finals Rodeo qualifiers to College of Southern Idaho graduates and local athletes. Bray, the 2023 Gooding Pro Rodeo all-around champion, grabbed $846 when he finished 12th in the 2024 Gooding Pro Rodeo tie-down roping.
As of Friday, Mayfield is the top-ranked all-around cowboy in the world. He’s won $212,557.94 in 2024, enough for a $77,000-plus cushion over second place Wacey Schalla.
He quickly found success at the professional level and credited a lot to his older team roping partner, Erich Rogers. Bray claimed the 2019 Resistol Team Roping Heeler Rookie of the Year then spent the entirety of the next three seasons with Rogers, a 2017 world champion and 12-time NFR qualifier. He said his older partners like Rogers equipped him with the knowledge to succeed but worked toward the “total package,” which he has now with his partner and younger brother, Wyatt Bray.
The two did not score in Gooding but recently cashed $9,389 each in the past week. The brothers from Stephenville, Texas, collected $22,472 each this month in team roping and will compete in the Horse Heaven Roundup Rodeo in Kennewick, Washington, which begins Tuesday. The pair will likely return to the Magic Valley as Paden Bray won the 2023 Magic Valley Stampede all-around title.
The 2024 Magic Valley Stampede runs Aug. 29-31 at the Twin Falls County Fairgrounds in Filer. “We don’t really worry about the world standings too much.
We just go out, compete, try to make the best ride we can. Just keep it chill." “My brother is 6-foot-9, he has got a huge wingspan,” Paden Bray said.
“His range is unbelievable. I pride myself on catching behind him because he is kinda that guy that has got a lot of range and can turn steers from just about anywhere. If I just do my job, normally we are a pretty good pair.
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