story by Ruth Nicolaus
Quinten Hayden has faced some challenges in his life, and he’s come out swinging.
The Colorado Pro Rodeo Association member, a former bull rider, fell asleep behind the wheel on February 17, 2019 and was in a serious accident which caused him to be paralyzed from the neck down.
But that hasn’t stopped him from contributing to the sport he loves.
Quinten and his family moved from California to Colorado when he was ten years old. He and his brother competed in Little Britches Rodeo as well as the California Junior Rodeo Association, his parents driving from Colorado to California to take their sons to youth rodeos.
He joined the CPRA in 2007 and qualified for the CPRA Finals four times throughout his career before his accident.
Now, he serves as the CPRA bull riding director with the goal of being “their voice and defender. I’m the master link in the chain. What is a pro rodeo without bull riding? I have dreams of making the bull riding (at the CPRA finals) bigger and better.” He attends board meetings and rodeos, listens to the bull riders and communicates with them all.
Quinten’s wife Amanda is his caretaker, his driver, and his rock. Three or four months into their dating, he took her to meet his dad, as his dad fixed fence. She grabbed some T-posts to help, and when his dad saw how hard she worked, he told Quinten, ‘don’t you ever let her go,’ and he hasn’t.
The couple married in 2013 and have two children: daughter Zoie, who is twelve, and son Myson, who is eight. Husband and wife complement each other well. “When I’m down, she’s up, and when she’s down, I’m up,” he said. “I’ve been with her for fourteen years, so we don’t know any different. We’ve grown up from being teenagers to adults.”
Being immobile isn’t always easy, he admits. He has plenty of down days. “It does overtake me,” he said. “I’ll be fighting standard medical problems nobody can do anything about. I’m in the dark about it myself. And I have to figure out how to cowboy up and get through it. I can lay in bed and cry about it or do something.”
Quinten’s accident has a silver lining. The family spends a lot of time together. “We’ve become closer as a family,” he said. They hunt, fish and go to rodeos together.
And for Quinten, he’s applied his bull riding mentality to his health condition. Riding bulls is eighty percent mental, in his opinion, and so is living life. His life can be “a pain in the butt, but why let it get in the way. People have financial problems, relationship problems, car problems, and I have physical problems. Do I lay in bed and groan and moan about it or do I get out of bed and do something about it? I don’t let it stop me.”
Throughout his career, Quinten has competed at the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo, Colorado vs. the World and All-Stars along with other pro rodeos.
“I’ve done enough to be dang sure proud of it.”
