In 2023, the Western performance industry’s top databases—EquiStat and QData—ramped up their efforts to track the earnings on rope horses, from the Riata-Buckle-enrolled horses at all Global Handicaps events to professional ropers’ mounts at the Open jackpots and rodeos. Plus, they count all of the exploding rope-horse futurity money in their systems.
This data will help breeders, buyers and the everyday roper make better purchasing decisions for the growth of the horse industry for years to come. But what about the past? What about the great horses, and their great bloodlines, that have no records in our current databases?
What’s more, few records exist (in any remotely searchable online space) as to the original money earners at so many famous jackpots and rodeos. Even Kory Koontz’s, Trevor Brazile’s and Travis Tryan’s biographies are now hidden from the PRCA’s website given that they haven’t bought their cards in recent years. That means their ProRodeo earnings, year-by-year, are nearly impossible to find without tapping archivists at the PRCA or flipping through printed media kits kept in Senior Editor Kendra Santos’ attic.
To document these historical injustices, The Team Roping Journal dug back into the memories of the cowboys who rode those great horses, trying like heck to put together a list of some of the sport’s all-time greats and the money they earned along the way. This list is far from exhaustive, and we admit—each number is a very rough estimate based on PRCA earnings in the years the horses dominated, as well as major jackpot wins on their backs.
CLAY TRYAN’S DEW
$1.2 million
Dew The Cash
Mia Cash Too x Cea Carolina Dew
