INCENTIVES: ARHFA Top Gun Stallion Incentive, Royal Crown Roping

KH Rope Horses, of Berryville, Arkansas, made a big adjustment to their training operation with the purchase of their own stallion in 2022, a decision prompted by the rising price of horses in the booming rope horse industry.

“We’ve been training and selling rope horses for seven or eight years and when prices on nice prospects kept climbing, we decided we needed to buy a good stud that would breed some colts we like to ride ourselves,” owner Kirk Hostetler said.

That stud is Josey Walez, aka “Outlaw,” a 2019 stallion sired by the great Hashtags out of Winenshineme, a producing daughter of the AQHA Hall of Fame stud Shining Spark. Competing in the ARHFA, Royal Crown and Riata events, Outlaw has won $25,000-plus under the guidance of Daniel Reed and Tanner Nall.

With his solid conformation, including good foot and bone coupled with a superb disposition, Outlaw is helping the KH reach their goal of raising quality, sound, good-looking rope horses.

“We got the first bunch of his colts under saddle now and they are definitely showing his athleticism and brains,” Hostetler said. “They’ve been good and we think his offspring will have the ability to excel in many different disciplines.”