No. 12 | $123,302.91
- Age: 30
- Hometown: Pueblo, Colorado
- Career earnings: $1,082,816
- NFR Qualifications: 4 (2018, 2021-22, 2025)
- NFR Average Titles: 1 (2018)
- Major ropings: Ariat World Series of Team Roping Title Fights XI Open; 2021 AQHA Jr Heeling world championship; 2025 AQHA Sr Heeling world championship;
- Major rodeos: NFR; CNFR; National Western Stock Show and Rodeo (Denver); Sandhills Stock Show & Rodeo (Odessa, Texas); Deadwood Days Of 76 Rodeo (South Dakota); Clovis Rodeo (California); Caldwell Night Rodeo (Idaho); La Fiesta de los Vaqueros (Tucson, Arizona); Cheyenne Frontier Days; Cody Stampede (Wyoming); and the Reno Rodeo.
- Star Horsepower: Dude (Romancing The Chics), YY, Tux (Nic of Shine)
- Rope Choice: Classic
The Yates name is team roping royalty in Colorado—and across the country—and Trey Yates is carrying that family legacy forward.
But the now four-time NFR heeler wasn’t always eaten up by rodeo. Trey first took an interest in rodeoing around 11 when he moved to Colorado to live with his dad, J.D., and the Yates side of his family.
“He liked to play basketball and wrestle, but my message was always to put your heart and soul into it and be as good as you can be,” J.D. told Spin To Win (now The Team Roping Journal) in 2013. “I remember a lot of days I wished Trey was roping with me, but I never forced him to rope. It just took him a little longer to find out that’s what he wants.”
Trey’s never looked back, and he climbed the team roping ladder with help from two of the industry’s best. J.D. one of the youngest cowboys to ever qualify for the NFR, when he heeled for his father, Dick, there at the age of 15. Since then, he’s qualified for the NFR 21 times, won 49 AQHA World Championships and the BFI.
Trey cracked out as a Resistol Rookie in 2014 with the goal of roping with his dad at the Cheyenne Frontier Days, all while college rodeoing. Four years later and Trey would have the year that set everything in motion.
In 2018, Trey roped most of the winter with now two-time World Champ Tyler Wade. Come the summer, Trey was 18th in the world and teaming up with 2015 World Champion Aaron Tsinigine prior to the Reno Rodeo. But the week prior, Trey accomplished another one of his main goals when he won the CNFR with Kellen Johnson. That win set the rest of the year in motion.
The following week, Tsinigine and Trey win Reno before having a $20,000-a-man Cowboy Christmas. Before he knew it, he had the NFR made.
“In three weeks time, I had the NFR made,” Trey said in 2021. “It just happened in an instant, and I was kind of just like a kid in a candy store just going crazy.”
At his inaugural NFR, Yates placed in seven rounds and won $129,308.
“First round, Aaron hangs it on one, and I spike a right leg—happiest leg of my life,” Trey said with a laugh. “I was kind of relieved it was over; like, we did it. I ride out of the arena, get my phone, and I have a text from my dad that said, ‘I love you, buddy. I’m proud of you.’ And that was probably the highlight of it.”
Trey went on to win the average and finish third in the world. But the highs only last so long.
“My dad told me a long time ago, the hardest time to make the NFR is your second try, second time,” Trey said in 2021. “So coming off a great NFR, finishing third in the world, I kind of thought I was one of the boys. And I quickly got humbled.”
Two years passed before Trey stepped foot inside the Thomas & Mack again. But he returned like he never left, winning the first round of the 2021 NFR—his first NFR round win ever. He made the Finals again in 2022 before narrowly missing it again in 2023.
Roping behind one of his heroes, two-time World Champ Chad Masters, Trey finished the 2023 season No. 19. When Trey’s main mount “Dude,” registered Romancing The Chics, went down for the year, it greatly affected his season. But he also learned from it, too.
“I learned you have to find a way to brush it off,” Trey said. “Everybody screws up—some less than others—but nothing is impossible, because as terrible a year as we had, we were still within range. We were never out of it. So, what if I’d have had a better attitude here or there or been more focused? Three steers could have changed everything, and a guy’s got to be pretty strong-willed at times to make it.”
Trey finished 2024 at No. 22, and kicked off 2025 with the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo win behind 16-time NFR header Luke Brown. Their season came down to the wire, both entering the Governor’s Cup the last week of September on the bubble.
“We’re going to rope to the best of our abilities to win money,” Trey said. “That’s it. It’s a blessing just to get to do this at a high level.”
Their win in Round 1 for $11,911 a man sealed the deal, however, and Trey will head back to the bright lights of Las Vegas this December No. 12 with $123,302.91. Trey also crossed $1 million in PRCA earnings this summer.
“I didn’t even know,” Trey said. “I honest to God didn’t know. I was in Idaho with some friends of mine, and my birthday was rolling around right around then. I took up golfing as a hobby this year, and I had some other friends there, one is a vet, Jim Dorenkamp, he’s a vet in Caldwell. And anyway, they showed up to hang out during Nampa, essentially like a little birthday party. Well, they gave me this custom golf bag with this custom set of golf clubs and my name on it—the whole deal. And it was for crossing the million-dollar mark. I had no clue until then, but it’s just a step to what I would like to achieve.”
“I don’t think pressure’s real. The only pressure is air pressure—tires, hot air balloons. You just rope to win.”
– Trey Yates, 2025
More with Trey
- Trey Yates, Pablos Time Set New World Show Record to Win 2025 AQHA Senior Heeling World Title
- Tonozzi and Yates Dominate Mountain States Circuit Finals as Van Aken Reigns in Heading Year-End
- Luke Brown and Trey Yates Kickstart 2025 Partnership with $11K Denver Win
- The Short Score: Trey Yates Talks 2025 National Western Stock Show and Rodeo Win
- About Those Guardian Angels Trey Yates Talked About Last Night
- Lessons in Losing: Trey Yates on What He Learned Not Making the Finals
- 5 Things J.D. Yates Did to Raise a Winner in Trey
