American Quarter Horse Harley D Zip added more than $10,000 to his American Quarter Horse Association Incentive Fund earnings in 2008, totaling $98,222.66 in lifetime earnings. That makes the 13-year-old bay gelding the highest-earning nominated foal in the Incentive Fund’s 23-year existence. Harley and his owners are just one of the many success stories that have come out of the AQHA Incentive Program.
In a nutshell, the Incentive Fund was created as a way to reward and encourage AQHA members for showing their American Quarter Horses. Stallions are enrolled on an annual basis for each breeding season, making their offspring eligible to be enrolled as well. The available money in the Incentive Fund is divided by the number of points earned by the enrolled horses in the open and amateur divisions of AQHA competition throughout the year, making each point worth a certain amount of money. The point value is then multiplied by the number of points earned by the horse to determine the accumulated amount for the season.
The 2008 show season saw a record high in total points – 147,864 – earned by nominated horses, which is 10,066 more points than in 2007. The point value in 2008 was $22.35, which resulted in a 2008 payout of $3,304,760.40.
“In a world where many investments are shaky at best, our goal is to keep the Incentive Fund a viable program for breeders, owners and exhibitors of American Quarter Horses,” said Trent Taylor, AQHA Treasurer. “The Incentive Fund continues to be a good pay-to-play program.”
The earnings are split between the current owner when points were earned, the stallion’s nominator for the year the foal was produced and the foal’s nominator in an 80-10-10 percent split. Currently, there are 351,587 horses enrolled in the fund, and $63,016,263.69 has been paid out since the first checks were written in 1986.
Learn more about the Incentive Fund at www.aqha.com/showing/awards/incentivefund or call (806) 376-4811.
