Riata Buckle 2023 News
Oct 29, 2023
RIATA BUCKLE 2023
NEWS
The 2nd Annual Riata Buckle Championship has doubled
in size over the last twelve months. A huge
thank you to all the stallion owners, team ropers, break away ropers and those
who have nominated a Riata Buckle horse! The payoff for this roping has jumped
to $2.6 Million, representing a 200% payback across the board. The #9.5
Championships paying $550,000 with roughly 185 teams, represents the largest
infusion of added purse in cowboy history. Setting aside the Pro-Futurity type
roping, the Riata Buckle is in its own unique team roping category.
TEAM COUNTS
Obviously, these numbers are only an estimate, and we
anticipate drawouts and horse withdrawals, etc., but at this writing the team
counts are as follows: Pro Futurity - 95; #14.5 - 270; #12.5 - 367; #10.5 - 271,
#9.5 - 184, #10JR – 55, and the breakaway has 89.
The books will close on the #10
Junior roping at 10:00 AM on Saturday, Nov 4.
SCHEDULE
With unanticipated growth is the #14.5 and #12.5 there was
not enough time to run the ProFuturity event on Friday as well. Therefore, all
of the Pro-Futurity ropers have been notified that the event schedule has
changed.
The Pro-Futurity is now scheduled
for 4pm Thursday, Nov 2 for a Matinee roping. The announcement was texted
to ropers last week and placed up on the website. We did check the AQHA
schedule and although the 1PM breakaway might be a bit tight for breakaway
ropers, team ropers will not have a conflict with the World Show. With all this said, the Riata Buckle #14.5
Championship will move up to 8am on Friday morning with the #12.5 immediately
following!
DRAW TEXT
If you have registered your cell phone number on the member
page of GlobalHandicaps.com we estimate sending your draw positions to you by
Nov 1. This is as soon as we can get the
draw sent. Adding each roper's name,
horse, associated sires, coupled with frequent horse changes, has slowed down
the entry process.
PAYOFF
For those of you who did not come to the Riata Buckle Championship
last year, please note that 20% of the guaranteed payoffs go to Stallion owners
and breeders. The Riata Buckle program is designed to include and reward all
the partners in this endeavor.
In the past month we explained many times how we will
calculate the payoff should a placing team contain a proxy horse. The proxy horse
is a technique to allow 'help horses' where needed in a team concept.
Proxy horses will be paid using a standard payoff calculation
based on the roper's pot and team count without consideration of the Guaranteed
payoff. As announced several times, you
are reminded that this unique proxy payoff calculation is to guarantee that all
the guaranteed money goes to Riata horses and not the Proxy. The roper riding
the Riata horse gets the advertised guaranteed money for both partners less the
proxy horse payout.
Remember, all payoff checks will be issued to the Roper
entered regardless of who paid the entry fee.
Private arrangements will need to be settled privately. Also NOTE, the payoff will be by check. Because this is a pre-enter event we will not
have cash to cash payoff checks.
EARNINGS BONUS
Tracking earnings on Riata rope horses for the duration of
their roping career will be an on-going priority. This year we introduced our
Earnings Bonus program as our first attempt to get ropers to report winnings on
their horses from all the big roping associations throughout the roping season.
We put up big money for this incentive with very little response and in fact
the response was so light that we cannot justify paying it as advertised. Some
earnings bonus incentive will be paid but not as previously advertised.
We want to promote ropers of all handicap levels, not just
for those in the 10.5 and 12.5. So in
lieu of totally reneging on an earnings incentive, we will do several Earnings
Cash drawings each day of the Riata Buckle, basically giving away money. We
will place anyone who submitted earnings notifications into those drawings, but
anyone who won money on a Riata horse during the year may also register at the
roping office. If you are reading between the lines here this will be big time
photo opportunities on social media that Riata "gives away FREE cash for merely
winning on a Riata rope horse any time of the year."
*The WSTR Finale side-pot
announcement was premature. While that
might be something we can do in the future, there wasn't enough time to
coordinate with WSTR before their books closed. We will announce our Earnings
program at Vegas following Riata Buckle event.
RULES
Probably the biggest rule discussion that went on in the off
season was how we would handle the futurity incentive horses with scoring
issues. It was not a major thing last year but there were a few that had
problems; we were lenient. That raised a concern by our field judges about applying rules evenly to older horses and younger horses. The conclusion is
that we would follow the WSTR three strike rule without deviation. Horses will
be ready for competition or not.
Horse verification – Last year we were careful to video each
horse within the short round to match markings to their papers in the weeks
following the event. We did DNA on only two horses last year that had no
apparent markings and found no problems. We will follow the same procedures we
did last year.
Formal WSTR Dress code will be in effect (two ropers have
been exempted for medical reasons)
