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-do.