Who is Hailey Kinsel?
If you are a fan of barrel racing, you have certainly heard about Hailey Kinsel, who set a new record on a standard barrel pattern at the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) and Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) rodeo held in 2020.
During the Wrangler National Rodeo, she won eight rounds in a time of 16.56 seconds riding her 10-years-old palomino mare, named DM Sissy Hayday, or as Hailey prefers to call it, ‘Sister’.
The Cowgirl Magazine named Hailey barrel racing ‘girl on fire’, and if you want to know more about this excellent racer, let us tell you all about her life, career and passion.
Early life, family, and education
Hailey Kinsel was born on 3 October 1994, in Cotulla, Texas USA, where she was raised by her parents. Her father, Dan is a real estate agent, and her mother Leslie is an equestrian, and she was the one who instilled in Hailey a love for horse breeding and riding.
Hailey has one brother, Matt, with whom she enjoyed taking care of their animals on a cattle ranch where they grew up. Her brother also liked riding horses, however, subsequently, he chose a different career.
Although, until she was 11 Hailey was into gymnastics, and she used to compete, eventually she became more interested in rodeo and barrel racing. Her mother, Leslie, was a Miss Rodeo Texas in 1980, and besides her mother, Hailey’s role model and idol is Charmayne James, a former professional rodeo cowgirl who won 11 WPRA barrel racing championships during her career.
Speaking of Hailey’s educational background, she was homeschooled, and following her high school graduation in 2012, she enrolled at Texas A&M University, from which she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture Economics in 2017.
Career as a racer
Hailey began competing when she was a teenager, in junior high school and high school competitions, riding her first barrel horse, which she and her mother brought up from a foal.
Later, Hailey competed on a gelding, a castrated male horse (so it would be calmer and better behaved), and her gelding, named TJ was with her when she filled for a professional permit for the WPRA, in 2015. In the same year, she finished ranked 19th in the Rookie of the Year standings of the WPRA.
In 2016, Hailey won the Longview PRCA Rodeo (Texas), Hugo PRCA Rodeo, (Oklahoma), the Crockett Lions Club PRCA Rodeo, and The Elizabeth Stampede (Colorado) when she first rode Sister.
During Hailey’s freshman year at college, she and her mother bought Sister as a filly, and they waited until Sister was five years old to begin competing in the futurity competition, usually limited to younger horses. Sister is a palomino mare horse, known for its yellow, cream, or gold coat and silver or white tail and mane.
In season 2017, Hailey and Sister won a gold medal in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the Days of ’47 Rodeo, and then finished second at the Tri-State Fair and Rodeo, held in Amarillo, Texas, among many others competitions.
In 2018, ’19, and ’20, Hailey won the World Barrel Racing Championship at the National Finals Rodeo. In the following year, Hailey and her horse, Sister, took their first victory lap of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, held in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In May 2022, Hailey won the Women’s Rodeo World Championship with her new horse, named Jules, also a palomino mare.
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Husband and children
In April 2018, Hailey revealed that she’d begun dating Jess Lockwood, the World Champion Bull Rider. He is a professional rodeo cowboy, who specialized in bull riding. Jess Lockwood was born on 28 September 1997, in Volborg, Montana USA, where he was raised by his parents. His father, Ed, was a professional saddle bronc rider, and his mother, Angie, was a barrel racer.
Jess won his first World Number One Bull Rider title at the 2017 Professional Bull Riding World Championship held in Wheeling, West Virginia, with earnings over $1.5 million. Today, he’s in 7th place.
Hailey and Jess met through a joint friend, and although she thought that she would never date a bull rider, the two eventually became engaged in 2019.
On 25 October 2019, Hailey and Jess exchanged their wedding vows at Hailey’s family ranch in Cotulla, and Hailey took his surname. In the following years, she went professionally by the name ‘Hailey Kinsel Lockwood’.
The couple lived on Hailey’s ranch in Stephenville, Texas during the summer, while the winter they would spend in Montana.
When Hailey stopped using Jess’ surname, rumors about their divorce began circulating on the internet, and some of them were saying that Jess cheated on Hailey, thus the two separated. However, neither Hailey nor Jess gave any official statement about their marital status, but many of her fans believe that Hailey is single.
The couple doesn’t have children.
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Presence on social media platforms
Hailey has an army of her followers who like to keep track of her life and work, which they are able to do through her social media accounts.
Her Instagram account has been followed by nearly 225,000 people, while she doesn’t use Twitter.
Hailey’s official Facebook page has gained over 270,000 fans.
She mostly posts updates about her work at her ranch, but she often shares videos of her previous races and photos of her horses.
Age, height, and net worth
This successful, 27-year-old cowgirl has long brown hair and brown eyes and, as we all know, jockeys need to take care of their weight, so Hailey weighs around 110lbs (50kgs) and is 5ft 2ins (1.57m) tall.
When she ranked 19th in 2015, Hailey earned around $5,000, and in 2017 she finished the year with a new earning record after winning over $285,000, and the next year over $350,000. After winning over $140,000 at the National Finals Rodeo, she finished the year 2019 with nearly $300,000, and in 2020 with close to $350,000.
As of September 2022, Hailey has a net worth estimated at over $2.5 million.
