Colbert 55-year-old still competes in bareback riding

Jed McKinlay can’t shake his love for the cowboy culture. It’s in his blood, a passion that’s deeper than just a pair of cowboy boots.

So no surprise when the local equine veterinarian entered in the bareback riding at the Asotin Pro West rodeo in April. What’s surprising is McKinlay turned 55 in July.

That’s an old, old man in a sport known as the most physically demanding of all the rodeo events.

Bull riding is dangerous, but the cowboys just hang on, they don’t have to spur. Bareback riders are searching for a rhythm, where they can gain control and rake their spurs from the horse’s neck all the way up its shoulder to the rigging. Half of their score depends on this spurring action – all the while their neck and back are whiplashed from the explosive force of these powerful broncs bred to buck hard and wild. Unlike in his younger days, bareback riders now wear a neck roll to protect their neck and spine from the whiplash.

“That’s one thing I kinda had forgotten,” McKinlay said. “No matter how good it goes, something is going to be sore.”

He nonchalantly notes that he may have cracked a rib at Newport, Washington, in June when his bronc fell. That didn’t stop him from winning. He also won the recent Clayton, Washington, rodeo and took second in Cheney on a horse he talked of like a long-lost love. Good Times, a mare owned by C5 Ranch in Alberta, has bucked herself to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. In Cheney, she did her part to help McKinlay win $1,370. He drew her again last week in Sandpoint, but this story’s deadline was before the rematch.

McKinlay isn’t old in mind, dreams or grit. He’s happy and healthy back on the broncs. To him, it’s a way to have some fun and – more importantly – mentor younger cowboys in an event that’s seeing fewer and fewer riders.

“There are not a lot of young men craving it,” he said. “That’s a lot of what I’m trying to do: pass on tradition. I want to encourage the next generation to be involved and enjoy it.”

McKinlay grew up in Kimberly, Idaho, but not on a ranch or in a rodeo family. He was surrounded by the lifestyle, working on ranches and riding bulls and bareback horses in high school rodeos along with his year-younger brother, Mark.

“I think I won district bareback riding finals in ’78,” McKinlay said, not fully comfortable talking about his accomplishments. “I probably was the only one who stayed on and marked them out.”

Out of high school, McKinlay served a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Then he attended the College of Southern Idaho before transferring to the University of Wyoming, which has a competitive college rodeo program.

By the time he graduated with an animal science degree, he was married and had two daughters and was riding lots of broncs. He graduated with a doctorate of veterinary medicine from Washington State University in 1990 and worked in Alberta before opening a clinic from his Colbert garage in 1993. He was still riding bareback horses and had four children.

Today, McKinlay & Peters Equine Hospital employs five veterinarians and has two clinics, including a state-of-the-art equine hospital in Newman Lake that opened three years ago. McKinlay, whose specialty is reproduction, jokes that he’s everything from an ER doctor to a gynecologist and dentist. The evening interview was cut short when his pager went off calling him back to work.

So how does a man in his 50s decide to rekindle his passion for riding bareback horses, where he uses one hand to grip the rigging, which is a heavy piece of leather with basically a suitcase handle?

First, he must persuade his wife.

“Part of it was just my love for it,” he said. “Passion is maybe an appropriate word. My uncle mentioned the word addiction but maybe that’s too strong. I really just love the sport.”

McKinlay had a soft start three years ago when he rode two rodeos. He tore his tendon off his bicep muscle during a ride in Sandpoint.

“I had a little surgery and had it put back together,” he said. “It got me excited I guess. Ever since I think I’ve been thinking about it.”

Besides building the strength in his arm, McKinlay trains hard to stay fit and agile. At first he ran a lot. Then his brother encouraged him to do wind sprints, a logical training method because bareback riding is ultimately a sprinters’ sport. He’s embarrassed admitting he tore a hamstring muscle. Now he bikes, lifts weights and does a lot of pull-ups and core exercises. He’s lost 15 pounds.

“It’s an event you don’t want to be packing extra weight especially when I’m physically too old to be doing it,” he said.

A devout LDS church member, McKinlay also thanks God for his return to the bucking chutes, saying “I feel it keenly as I settle down on the back of a bucker.”

There aren’t a lot of guys riding at 55. A quick look at the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association, which doesn’t have sanctioned rodeos in the Northwest, shows there were no cowboys in the 60 plus or 68 plus bracket who qualified as national finals average champions. That was the same for bull riding and saddle bronc. Only the roping events had older competitors. Competitors must be 40 to compete in senior rodeos.

Jimmy Nugent, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the bareback event director for the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association. He made his comeback in 2014 at age 49, but it was more of a “live like you’re dying” influence. According to a recent article in Rodeo News, Nugent received a kidney transplant from his twin brother in 2011. After three years of recovery and working out, friends encouraged him to ride broncs again.

“I did miss the camaraderie and friendships, so I came back in 2014 and had a great time,” he said in 2011. I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had.”

McKinlay is having fun too, looking forward to riding in Coeur d’Alene and at the Spokane County Interstate Fair Rodeo in September. He said most everyone is supportive and that he’s blessed to have so much encouragement.

“There are the worry warts too,” he laughed. “But that is just a way of saying I love you.”