Riata Ranch Equine
Belen, New Mexico
riatarancheqine.com; 505-808-0448 or 505-808-0440
Rhonda and Ty Saulsberry’s Riata Ranch Equine is a full-service breeding facility in Belen, New Mexico, offering exceptional standing stallions as well as embryo transfers, artificial insemination, foaling and mare and foal care year-round.
Riata Ranch Equine stands Riata Buckle Stallion Lefty Starlight (Grays Starlight x Dox Rey Oak; $1,000 stud fee), the stallion that got them into the breeding business to begin with 13 years ago.
“When we bought him from Bobby Lewis in 2008, he already had 180 AQHA points in the heading and heeling,” Ty said. “We showed him in the calf roping after that, too and he got his AQHA Superior in that. He’s the ideal rope horse—from his conformation, to his heart and motor and mind. He throws chrome, too, with a flaxen mane and tail. We’ve ridden his colts for years, and they can go all day and their so quiet and trainable.
The Saulsberrys have also held back some outstanding daughters of Lefty Starlight to cross on their red-roan junior stallions, Play Something Blu (Once In A Blu Boon x Desire to Play; $750 stud fee) and RR Crimson N Clover (Crimson Bet x Peponitas Dinky Doo ; $750 stud fee). They are also planning to stand their 2-year-old stallion, Leftys Blonde Playboy, a son of Lefty Starlight out of Playboys Luv Blondes.
Ty Saulsberry is certified in artificial insemination so Riata Ranch Equine can collect all of their own stallions, and their attending vet is Andres Estrada, DVM, DACT, DECAR, who is capable of doing embryo transfers, shipping and receiving frozen embryos and more. Riata Ranch Equine also offers recip mares in 2022—a commodity hard to come by with the explosion of the breeding market.
