Redgie Probst, chief operating officer at Fortune 200 company Quanta Services and partner in Solo Select stallion Time To Glo, hosted the first-ever Old West Roping Futurity July 25 to July 27 at his sprawling ranch in Wallsburg, Utah, in an event that raised the bar for the future of the performance horse industry.
The event paid out a massive $1,075,000, with 100% payback.
Hosted in partnership with the Richard family's A&C Racing and Roping and sanctioned by the American Rope Horse Futurity Association, the Old West Roping Futurity shelled out two $50,000 checks in the 4-&-Under Heading and 4-&-Under Heeling as well as two $100,000 checks in the 6-&-Under Heading and 6-&-Under Heeling.
"At the end of the day, it's all about a love for rope horses," Probst explained. "With having young girls and a young family, who have a love of the sport, I think that's probably the inspiration behind it."
Probst's event offered an arena custom-built for the futurity, overlooking his Utah mountain valley, and it featured a breakaway in addition to the regular ARHFA team ropings.
"Anytime these guys get a chance to run for this kind of money, I mean, it's a kind of a once in a lifetime deal," Probst said. "It needs to be here. I think we're behind, and I think when you better educate our sponsors or the sponsors out there, you better educate the community outside of the rope horse family. That's how it promotes the whole industry"
Probst spends his time taking his four kids to youth and amateur rodeos, with his girls showing horses in the non-pro at the rope horse futurities, too. So building the rope horse industry—after decades of building first his business as a lineman, then his own company that he sold to Quanta Services in 2013—is an investment in the future of his family, too.
"It's not really what you did," Probst said. "It's, it's more of what did you leave behind, right? And, and I think what we want to do is we want to leave a legacy for these young people out here to keep going. And we just need to do our part in setting it up to where, yeah, my kids can step into this and they can continue to do what they love to do and better the industry as a whole."
Probst is committed to growing the industry as a whole through his personal horse program, too, with futurity horses shown by the likes of Rhen Richard, Jeremy Buhler and Wesley Thorp.
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