Addicted to Horsepower

By Becky Newell

Team roper Rhen Richard has an addiction issue, and he’s not afraid to talk about it.

“I’m fascinated by the process of the horse, from breeding them, seeing them as babies, raising them, working with them, trying to create that horse that we’re looking for in our event,” says Rhen, who this spring won the team roping – and $50,000 – with Jeremy Buhler at Rodeo Houston. “It’s one of those things I go to bed thinking about at night – how to get better, how to make a better horse – and get up in the morning doing the same thing, thinking about getting better. Yeah, I’m just addicted to it.”

Having grown up in a family that bred, trained and raced American Quarter Horses, Rhen, a five-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifier, is no stranger to the value that comes with those horses being registered or transferred into the owner’s name. Now that he and his family are standing five stallions and breeding their own rope horses, he’s an even bigger believer in making sure they’re registered and transferred.

“We’re trying to do our own deal and create our own product in-house,” Rhen says. “It makes us feel good when we sell a horse and the customer can always go back and see where that horse came from and what the breeding was. Times have changed. People are starting to see that breeding is important. When a horse is made to do it and he’s bred to do it, he has probably got a better chance that he’s going to do it. We’ve got horses that we’ve taken and won on, either by our stallions or out of our mares, and we’re promoting that.”

One of the Richards’ stallions, Hes A Runnning Perry, is out of their home-bred mare, Runnning Brook Gal, who won the 2009 All American Futurity, the richest race for racing 2-year-old Quarter Horses. “He looks like a head horse,” Rhen says proudly. “He’s 15.2, short backed. He’s up in the neck. He’s what we think crosses good with a lot of our cow-bred mares.”

Rhen won the Salinas, California, rodeo in 2022 on Rubys Rollin, a home-bred mare by Reys Smokin Dually and out of the Brookstone Bay mare Rollin.

 “We also have a young stallion right now that I’ve been showing at the rope horse futurities who is by Woody Be Tuff, and we have real high hopes for him,” Rhen says. “He’s exactly what we want as far as trying to breed rope horses. He’s a little bigger for a cow-bred horse. He really runs uphill and wants to be on his butt.”

With all of the money that’s on the table at rope horse futurities and stallion incentive programs, Rhen says having registered horses pays.

“We’ve got multiple stallions paid in the Riata Buckle,” he says, “and we’ve paid a couple horses into the Royal Crown. We’re trying to create a product made to do the job.”

You, too, can register and transfer your American Quarter Horses and have the papers to prove it. Part of the American Quarter Horse Association’s mission is to record and preserve the pedigree of the American Quarter Horse. Learn more about registering your American Quarter Horse at www.aqha.com/registration. Complete the application and submit it online at www.aqha.com/members or mail it to AQHA, P. O. Box 200, Amarillo, TX 79168.

When you purchase a Quarter Horse, make sure that you get the horse’s original certificate of registration, a transfer report signed by the seller listing your name on the buyer line and the date of sale, which is the date you took possession of the horse. If you are missing transfers from previous owners, AQHA may be able to assist you with it. There is no deadline as to when a transfer report should be submitted. Download a transfer form at www.aqha.com/transfers.