story by Lily Weinacht
Rodeo has taken Kinzie Robins to the four corners of the sport. From backing into the roping box, to covering the CNFR and WNFR, and most recently, entering the world of entertainment as a rodeo clown, the 26-year-old from Cedar City, Utah, wants to experience it all.
“I’ve been rodeoing ever since I could walk,” says Kinzie. “My family owns a livestock auction, so I’ve always been around cattle.” With a rodeo background that includes her grandpa being one of the first tie-down ropers in Utah to dismount from the right, Kinzie started out competing in 4-H and rodeo queen contests. Other sports, such as basketball, held most of her interest through junior high and high school, but after a year of playing college basketball for Southern Utah University, Kinzie decided to switch to the college rodeo team. “It was a whole different world, going from rodeoing every once in a while to doing it every day,” says Kinzie, who joined the RMPRA in 2013. “My performance alone went through the roof. I felt like it helped me with my schooling in college to have my horses and have that relief—it helped my academics.”
Kinzie competed primarily in breakaway roping in college, along with some barrel racing and team roping, and graduated from SUU with her master’s degree in broadcasting. “When I was a senior in college, I got an internship at the College Finals (Rodeo) with Susan Kanode, and I loved it. The first year I worked the NFR, one of my professors at SUU was doing a documentary on the Wright brothers, and we did that the year Spencer won.” Kinzie also had the opportunity to intern with Wrangler Network for two years, where she helped produce the Wrangler NFR Countdown Show hosted by Jennifer and Stran Smith.
While she hopes to return to the media side of the WNFR and rodeo in general, Kinzie presently works at a residential treatment center for teenage girls doing equine therapy. She’s working on a piece about the center for Wrangler Network, capturing the very things she loves about her work. “The girls raise dairy calves, and they spend two hours with the horses once a week for therapy. Growing up with horses and animals, you think you know them until you get them in a setting with girls with traumatic pasts. They’re just in awe. It almost will leave you speechless what those horses can bring out in the girls.”
Kinzie in clown clothing – courtesy of the family
Kinzie’s coworker is Lee Bingham, a CNFR goat tying champion and a team roper, while Kinzie hauls to rodeos with fellow RMPRA ropers Megan Burbidge, Codi McPherson, and her roping partner, Jessie Brinkerhoff. “I’m definitely a team roper at heart, but I compete in breakaway more. I like the partner aspect of team roping, and knowing that I can trust somebody enough to enter with them and trust that we will do well together.” Kinzie also ropes with her younger brother Colton. They have two older sisters, and their parents, Scott and Diane Robins, are their biggest supporters. “We still call my grandpa Gary Robins when we rodeo anywhere, because he’s always wondering how we’re doing, and my dad’s been a big part of my rodeo career and always put us on really good horses.”
Kinzie’s horse Dino is a retired racehorse who recovered from a slab fracture in his knee to become her head horse, while Toby is her other mount in the team roping, and eventually, breakaway roping. She breakaway ropes off Rambo, who is also one of the family’s best ranch horses. Kinzie clerks at her family’s livestock auction, ‘R’ Livestock Connection, in Elsinore, Utah, and she also wants to attend auctioneer school in the future. Her latest venture, however, is working as a rodeo clown. She’s putting acts together and plans to work several local rodeos this summer, along with making a run at the RMPRA finals. “Last summer was the first time I actually made a run at it,” she finishes, “and it’s definitely what I’m going for this year.”
