INCENTIVES: Riata

Tripp Townsend had 200,000 reasons to love 2025—those are how many dollars he and his stallion racked up jackpotting. TRR Lucky Brazos, just coming 10, was the winningest team roping horse in the country prior to December’s NFR. 

He and Townsend not only placed third in the 9.5 last April at Wrangler BFI Week for $40,000 a man, but also won two rounds and the average of July’s Non Pro Heeling at the Old West Futurity for $24,416, and then won September’s Riata 10.5 Championship for a cool $80,000 a man.

Hiptown’s oldest foals will be 3 this year, but are proving to be quiet, trainable and capable of a big stop like their sire. They’re headed to roping futurities, if not the Snaffle Bit Futurity which Hiptown himself won (the Limited Open) in 2019. He had already banked six figures as a reined cow horse and ranch horse before his huge 2025 on the heel end. 

A son of Pepcid, by leading cutting sire Peptoboonsmal, Hiptown is out of a Playgun daughter. Townsend had owned Hiptown’s full brother that won two AQHA world championships and the 2020 Youth World’s Greatest Horseman.

“They’re just good every time,” he said. “They are all good in the box, they run, they rate, they are just easy to catch on.”