Which Pink Buckle Futurity Stallion is Most Likely to Produce a Winner
An analysis of past results to make an optimal choice in the 2021 breeding season
Barrel Racing has become big business in the equine industry. Winning horses are often selling in the range of the upper five figures to lower six figures. As this sport has grown and matured, new events are being created to showcase these athletes beyond the rodeo arena.
One such event is the Pink Buckle barrel race. According to their website
“It is designed to dramatically increase the number and quality of barrel racing performance horses by promoting the Pink Buckle stallions and their offspring.”
The Pink Buckle had its first race in 2018 and its popularity has skyrocketed. With $2.7 million in prize money for 2021 — it’s a very lucrative competition for the winners. However the Pink Buckle race is a very exclusive event. Only offspring of a select 50 stallions are eligible. Horses that are eligible to run in this particular futurity are in high demand and accordingly, command a higher price tag.
Choosing a Stallion
Choosing a stallion for a mare is not an easy task. Breeders take into consideration the strengths and flaws of the particular mare that is to be bred. Some of those strengths and weaknesses can be related to confirmation of the animal, or how well it meets a breed standard. Other people consider disposition, how the animal moves, and even color.
Economics also play an important role in the decision. Each stallion has its own breeding fee, some stallions with proven winners as offspring have much higher fees.
Paying the $200/year nomination fee for the Pink Buckle can be a significant financial commitment for some people. Add the price of breeding, Feed and board for the horse, training fees, travel and entry fees can easily tally up to a small fortune. Even the entry fees for the Pink Buckle can add up to more than $1000 depending on what the owner decides to enter.
Making a final decision of who to breed your mare too can be a daunting choice. Fortunately the past can sometimes be a key to the present.
Analysis
The goal of this analysis was to review all of the Pink Buckle race results as a data set and determine which stallions are consistently producing top performers. I opted to only review futurity results since this will give a better idea of how trainable the horses are. This decision was made to ensure that the age and experience levels of the horses for analysis was similar.
Below are the questions I hoped to answer:
Which stallions had the most offspring entered?
Which stallions’ offspring produced the most horses who placed in the 1D?
Who’s offspring had the best average time for the futurity?
Which stallion sired the most money winners?
Is there any connection between performance and Stud Fee?
Which stallions had the most offspring entered?
The first criteria used was number of futurity entries sired by a given stallion. This gives an idea of how trainable the foals are. It is assumed that a stallion with more trainable foals will have more foals entered. Surprisingly the number of offspring competing didn’t show a very strong relationship to stud fee.
Of the 62 sires that have had offspring eligible for the Pink Buckle event, 35 have had offspring compete at the Pink Buckle. 12 of those have since dropped off the roster leaving 23 stallions for the analysis.
The Top Five Sires with the most entries since 2018 are:
- Slick By Design — 71
- The Goodbye Lane — 48
- Blazin Jetolena — 39
- BHR Frenchies Socks — 24
- Shawne Bug Leo — 23
Which sire’s offspring had the best average time?
I calculated the total number of horses that had placed in the 1D in either of their two runs. But with such a difference in the total number of entries for any given sire, raw numbers don’t tell the whole story. So I calculated the percentage of offspring that placed in the 1D.
Top Five 1D Barrel Horse Producers:
- The Goodbye Lane — 66.7%
2. Streakin Boon Dox — 58.3%
3. JL Sirocco — 50%
3. No Pressure On Me — 50%
3. Traffic Guy — 50%
3. BHR Frenchies Socks — 50%
Best Average Time For the Futurity?
I had intended to look at the average time of each stallions offspring. Unfortunately tipped barrels are recorded as a no time and I had no way of knowing what the time would have been without a penalty. No times being recorded as a 999.00 second time significantly skewed the average times towards those stallions who did not have any offspring tip — even if they weren’t fast!
The ultimate goal of barrel racing is to get around the pattern as fast as possible and leave all three barrels standing. Tipped barrels happen for a variety of reasons, and that can sometimes be an error on the part of the rider. I didn’t want to penalize the sire for those issues — or even a horse that never made it into the arena.
I calculated the average time of each stallions offspring for each go, then added them together for a final average time. I chose to remove any offspring with no time for that go round’s calculation. That way the unknown penalties were not included.
The top 5 fastest average times:
- Dats a Frenchman — 35.388 Seconds
- Winners Version — 35.577 Seconds
- JL Sirocco — 36.177 Seconds
- Streakin Boon Dox — 36.303 Seconds
- No Pressure On Me — 36.319 Seconds
Which stallion sired the most money winners?
Success and winner can have very different meaning to different barrel racers. Some people are content to go home knowing they were in the 1D and that their horse did well. Others find the drive home easier when they are brining home prize money.
The purse for the Pink Buckle futurity has grown since 2018 so looking at total earnings could easily skew they data away from performance and more toward the 2020 results. I opted to look at which sires had the most money winners.
Since there was no 2D in the 2018 futurity I decided to arbitrarily assign 1D and 2D money winners based on the payout format from the 2020 futurity. The divisions were assigned with a 0.75 second split and the top 20 horses in the 1D and 2D were declared money winners. I then looked at the total percentage of money winners since there is a wide discrepancy in the number of entries.
Top 5 Sires of Money Winners:
- Carrizzo — 50%
- Streakin Boon Dox — 50%
- Furyofthewind — 46.15%
- PYC Paint Your Wagon — 42.86%
- The Goodbye Lane -35.42%
- Is there any connection between performance and Stud Fee?
While really diving deep into the analysis, I noticed a slight correlation between stud fees and 1D placings. However there is no strong correlation between average offspring performance and the stud fee.
Conclusions
Choosing to breed a mare is a significant investment in time and money. Its worthwhile to dig into as much information as possible when attempting to make a decision — beyond race results.
Often we let a few top performing horses influence decisions of who to breed to without truly considering the mare and the stallion, along with how they could complement one another.
This analysis is meant to supplement traditional methods of choosing a stud, along with more modern genetic testing.
Ultimately the decision rests with the mare owner and what their goals are for the foal. If I were to choose one for my mare, I’d look into The Goodbye Lane, or Streakin Boon Dox.
For more about my analysis you can visit my GitHub
