How is it possible to compete in the NCHA Futurity Amateur division, not make the NCHA Amateur Semi-Finals, yet earn more money than any of the Amateur Semi-Finalists and more money than the sixth place finalist?
Chad Rowland of Spring Hill, TN did it last year, when he showed Ahm All Shook Up, the highest advancing EE Ranches Gelding Incentive winner in the Amateur division and collected $12,590, without paying a cent more than his NCHA entry fee.
Ahm All Shook Up is sired by Dual Rey, one of 10 stallions participating in the 2009 NCHA Futurity Gelding Incentive that will pay out $100,000 in prize money to highest advancing offspring from the Non-Pro, Limited Non-Pro and Amateur divisions.
“Two of last year’s eligible geldings advanced to the Non-Pro Finals and six to the Semi-Finals,” noted EE Ranches owner Jo Ellard (pictured). “But places three through six in the Gelding Incentive won more money through the Incentive than they did as Semi-Finalists.”
Craig Crumpler, for instance, earned $5,000 from NCHA as a Non-Pro Semi-Finalist on Woody McCall, but he was awarded $9,617 from the Incentive fund because Woody McCall is by Nitas Wood, a Gelding Incentive sire. Craig also earned $13,989 from the Incentive as NCHA Futurity Non-Pro champion and highest advancing Incentive Gelding on Woodys Bad Boy, by Nitas Wood.
“At the end of the 2009 NCHA Futurity, we will have paid out $280,000,” said Ellard, who initiated the program at the 2007 NCHA Futurity. “The gelding owners don’t have to pay anything. The stallion owners pay it all.”
Ellard conceived the idea for the Gelding Incentive as a way to encourage buyers of NCHA Futurity prospects to consider purchasing gelding son sired by the stallions that stand at EE Ranches.
“People used to not even look at three-year-old geldings,” she pointed out. “But it’s amazing what this has done. I’ve had four groups of people this week that wanted to see geldings. It encourages people to ride geldings and breeders to geld some of their colts. We’ve even had people buy stallions and geld them so that they can be eligible for this.”
Click here for more information on the 2009 EE Ranches Gelding Incentive.