2023 RIATA BUCKLE ROPER’S NEWSLETTER
Dec 4, 2023
Hello all, we just completed a successful second season of the Riata Buckle! The event doubled in size in one year paying out $2.6 million and is anticipated to cross the $3 million threshold next year. That was 106% more than ropers put up in entry fees. In other words, every dollar put up was matched resulting in the overall event paying back 206%. Riata Buckle is easily in the top five in team roping payouts and when it crosses the $3 million dollar mark, we will quickly move up on the same level as the largest horse associations in the country. On the horse side of the equation, it has already affected the marketplace, and in a very short time influenced the all-time stallions' earnings standings.
Ropers asked a lot of questions during the Riata Buckle Championships about the stallion and breeder incentives. Riata Buckle is made possible by the stallion owners contributing to the program to promote their stallions. Because of them, you will always be competing for well over 100% and usually 200% of your entry fees compared to the standard payout of 70% or 80%. With that in mind always remember that stallion owners receive a payout of 10% of each pot, and breeders get 10% of each pot for a total of 20% paid on winning horses. As an example, if the roping paid $650,000, stallion owners received (10%) $65,000 and breeders received (10%) $65,000. They are your biggest fans, they count on you winning, and in fact are betting their money on you winning on horses from their stallions! This is an important distinction of Riata Buckle and when you bring in roping partners from outside Riata, please make sure they understand why these pay so well.
We debated at great length back in June whether to do guaranteed money one more year or move to added money before setting the budget. Minimum guarantees are a startup technique to use when you don't know how many teams you will have. When team counts begin to fluctuate budgeting and balancing distribution of guaranteed minimums gets impossible. In hindsight we should have gone to added money this year, but how do you anticipate 100% growth. The entire focus of the program will shift to "Added Money" in 2024. This will also allow Riata Buckle the flexibility and options to do incentives at other big events, and to produce another event as has been requested.
ADDITIONAL 2023 POINTS OF INTEREST
Summary Stallion Results: The progeny of 49 Riata Buckle stallions earned payouts, with 107 stallions represented in entries. Winnings from the top five stallions each exceeded $100,000 with Cat Man Do as top earner followed by Bet Hesa Cat, Travelin Jonez, Metallic Cat, and Mia Browbeater, respectively. Just under the $100,000 barrier were Cowboys Cartel, Dukes and Divas, Hickory Holly Time and Smart Chic Olena. A full listing is located at RiataBuckle.com.
Breakaway Event: The new "Riata Buckle" format was a big success. Split short rounds was a huge success and we will be expanding this program. Details will become available at the end of January.
Riata Buckle Team Roping vs Industry Structure: The most telling numbers in the 2023 Riata Buckle was the size of each particular division. Our target for the future is five different skill-levels from the pro level to beginner level. The largest divisions in real-world team roping have consistently been a #9 division, as an example the #9.5 WSTR Finale paying over $2 million. Yet here we are at the Riata Buckle with the #12.5 being our largest division with the majority of ropers entering with #6 and #7 handicaps. That's a huge difference from normal ropings where the majority are #4 and #4.5 ropers. Sitting at the top of team roping pyramid are twenty or thirty #10 ropers and at the base are 20,000 to 30,000 #4 ropers. Obviously, with a current Riata Buckle baseline of ropers packing #6 and #7 handicaps, and the #12.5 as our largest division, we are very excited at our potential for growth. You should be too!
Money: The full payoff is now posted at the website with roper results, stallion and breeder results. We hit all our guarantees, but we outsmarted ourselves on budgeting the guarantee for the #14.5 and Pro Futurity.
When the #14.5 roping was separated from the Pro Futurity, we guaranteed $100,000 first, then later when it passed 150 teams, we announced a guarantee of $325K. The Pro Futurity last year had 48 teams and we expected 25 more with the futurity incentive, so we figured we would guarantee 3X $50K and throw in $25K for incentives for a total of $175,000. The Open exceeded its estimate and the #14.5 was much larger than anticipated. The guarantees were advertised for several months before entries opened, so there was no misinformation, just under budgeted.
Riata Buckle invested a large guarantee in the Pro Futurity last year, so we obviously missed the opportunity to capitalize on that momentum. As we move forward all our divisions should have equal added money, with the exception of the Pro Futurity. Because of the limited number of high-number ropers, in the future, the Pro Futurity will always get a disproportionate larger percentage of added money.
We know in advance that the 20% for Stallion and Breeder payoff coming off the top before the aggregate is calculated will impact fixed added money differently based on the number of teams. Trust, we have recognized that problem and will have a fair plan by the time we see you in 2024.
WHAT'S AHEAD IN 2024 FOR RIATA BUCKLE
Mark Your Calendar – DATE CHANGE: In 2024 Riata Buckle will move one month sooner to October 2 through October 5, still at the Lazy E Arena. There is no good date and most certainly this will interfere with something, but for our future, now is the time for us to make the move.
Future Design for Quality and Size: We are inviting the entire roping community to join us if they have a Riata Buckle rope horse. However, we are not trying to generate team counts. Pursuing the "quality" angle to showcase horses better with smaller, richer ropings is our goal. With the event growing more than anticipated we were asked, "Why didn't you use two arenas this year?" For one thing this event is the #1 viewed event on Roping.com and streaming this event is important for horse owners, stallion owners and breeders. But realistically planning for November weather is impossible. With the growth of this event combined with a necessary option to use two arenas, we will move to the first week of October in 2024. Getting away from potential bad weather, the WSTR Finale entry deadline, world show, circuit finals, and all the other roping competitions and horse sales will give us room to grow. Team counts will also be controlled in 2024 to a degree with entry fee pricing, format structure and schedule.
Want Another Event? The change to Added Money will allow us to potentially fund another event and added incentives at some of the biggest ropings in the world next season. We want to give ropers plenty of reasons to ride a Riata Buckle horse. Additional 2024 scheduling will be announced in early January.
Horse and Rider Changes: The effort to put on "TEAM" events tracking multiple ropers and horses is extremely difficult and we now understand why horse shows and futurities have stayed with a single rider-single horse concept. The tracking of team handicaps, nominations, ages, proxies, and nominated colts, is a big task. While we were able to pull that off, we could not prepare rosters or draws until right before the event started as a result of the frequent horse and roper changes. There were over 600 changes on 1250 entries, with some teams changing two and three times. An additional complication was the large volume of changes post deadline undermined our pre-event cross checks on entries. As an example, high call in the #12.5 had to withdraw as they were both on proxies - a result of a last-minute horse change. This is an early warning to everyone: horse and rider changes after books close, other than emergencies, will be assessed a larger fee that escalates based on how many changes a roper makes. In addition, payouts will not be as timely as you've come to expect at typical team roping events, there are just too many moving parts. Verification is a big deal, and we will take the time necessary to ensure accuracy.
Proxy Horse: Will the proxy program continue? This is a program designed to allow "helper" or "substitute" horses to be used. This program gives outsiders a way in for their first look at Riata, provided of course that one of the partners on the team has a Riata nominated colt in their name. In-utero proxies will not be allowed again. We haven't decided the best way to handle proxies moving forward. One consideration is to possibly allow it in some divisions and not in others. At this time, we are analyzing actual proxy use this year before making that final decision. The first-year practice of making the helper horse pay more in entry fees, according to ropers, was much more preferable to the "confusing" discounted payoff we used this year. Any direction we go will be announced in January.
Earnings Program: We made our first effort to develop an earnings program using major ropings across the country. There are several efforts underway to get team roping earnings reported. We gathered about $500,000 from the qualifiers, and that, added to the $2.6 million just paid, is a fair second year offering of over $3 million in team roping horse earnings to QData and EquiStat. We will introduce our sidepot earnings program in coming months to further drive this program and pay out more money to Riata horses throughout the year. We hope to offer Riata cash incentives at a half dozen major events in 2024 to multiply the earnings numbers.
Software Development: Teaming up with Equine Network and AQHA, we were able to develop software that would check horses for nominations and allow a roper to nominate and enter the event via online entry combining the automated ability to verify horse information with AQHA into a single roping operation system using GEMS—the Global Event Management Software that operates 90% of the ropings in the world. Combining the roper data and horse information was utilized and displayed directly into the streaming at Roping.com. All three of those software packages were integrated and Beta tested during the 2023 Riata Buckle. They will be upgraded and modified for the next season to also handle online entries for sidepots with the earnings program.
Personal Nomination Portal: We are very close to launching a Riata Buckle horse nomination portal allowing you to view and update all your nominations online via RiataBuckle.com. You will be able to see your prior year's nominations, renew or nominate new horses including adding any number of new colts. The last part of that development will allow you to batch large numbers of nominated colts and pay with either an E-check or credit card. While the banks still charge for E-check, that fee will be substantially less than the 4% credit card fee.
Don't forget late nominations close on December 31st
if you need to get last-minute horses in.
Thank you for a fabulous season and if you have any suggestions or concerns, please feel free to call.
