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. 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.
"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." Bray, the 2023 Gooding Pro Rodeo all around champion, grabbed $846 when he finished 12th in the 2024 Gooding Pro Rodeo tie-down roping.
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 to.