Dear Roper,
When the gavel dropped at $1.7 million on a 3-year-old filly at the Old West Futurity Sale, the internet did what it does best: questioned everything. How could that possibly pencil? And what does it mean for the rest of us?
Fair questions. That kind of number raises eyebrows—especially in team roping, where big money has long lived in the arena, not the sale ring.
But maybe this is the moment where those two worlds finally collide.
You might remember when cutters started bringing million-dollar price tags. Not everyone understood it then either. But the money followed the value, and the value followed the opportunity. We’re seeing rope horses catch up—faster and on a bigger scale.
In 2017, when we started covering rope horse futurities in The Team Roping Journal, it felt like the beginning of something. Then Denny Gentry launched Riata, creating an incentive program that welcomed the everyday roper—#8.5 to Open—into a breeding and buying game they could realistically play. Stallions and prospects of all values entered the mix, and real momentum started building.
The Old West Sale on June 20 put an exclamation point on that.
With a $25,000 buy-in funding a sale-graduate incentive paying out in 2026 and beyond, and $1 million on the line, the gamble for high-dollar players starts to make sense. Global has been tracking odds in roping for 30 years, and when your odds are 1-to-9 to win something, and only a handful of horses are eligible, the math isn’t so far-fetched. Especially when those horses stay in the hands of top-tier trainers.
What does that mean for the rest of us?
What if it’s not a threat to the average roper—but an opportunity for trainers, breeders and weekend competitors alike? What if the model that the Relentless Remuda has openly shared—in this magazine and on Roping.com—isn’t reserved for the elite, but a path anyone can learn from?
The Ariat World Series of Team Roping Finale pays out more than any Western performance event on Earth—and more than any other recreational sport, period. Ropers are looking for horses that can take them to the pay window. With over $100 million moving through the sport every year, the demand for good horses isn’t slowing down.
The price of one filly may not tell the whole story. But it might show us where the next chapter starts.
—TRJ—
