EP 60 New Horizons: Emily Konkel

I think that right now it is still a strong industry, but I compare it a little bit to the housing crisis or the housing bubble.

At some point, I think we're going to hit a ceiling on this thing.

I hope for all of our sakes that are involved in the industry, it's not too soon, but I think it's a real thing.

I think that you have to have the number of horses to compete in these events.

The competition is getting so much stiffer.

But the payouts also have to reflect this.

For people to be involved in this industry, it has to financially make sense or they're just going to go buy a boat.

You know, it's probably cheaper to have a boat than a horse.

So I think all of those things need to align and they need to align pretty quickly to keep this thing stable.

I agree with you.

I hear you.

The value is real, which we now have, and it's because of the earning potential of both horses and riders.

When you start to do some of the analytics, that tells a very interesting tale because riders are now positioned quite well, but horse owners not as good because you got to own multiple in order to see a good return.

But that also means your expenses are by multiple.

Purse creation and the breeding component in you guys and under your leadership, because the cowhorses, when the breeding program to get the nomination of the studs, get the nomination of the offspring, and you led one of those programs, right? Yes.

Yeah, so we actually, NRCHA, it was in 2020, at the end of 2022, early 2023, we talked about revamping the cow horse incentive, which it was formerly the subscribed stallion program.

And it was a very simple program that the stallion paid in per year, and it was $1,000 a year.

Of course, there's a few late fees with that, but very simple program.

And then that payout would be paid out at the stallion stake.

So just one of the five NRCHA events.

And that seemed to work pretty well, but we were starting to see the rise of all of these new programs like the Ruby Buckle and the Pink Buckle and all of these incentives.

And cow horse is a very unique sport in the sense that you can have a reining stallion or you can have a cutting stallion or even a rope horse stallion.

And they can make a good cow horse.

And so it kind of makes cow horse a bit of a melting pot.

So as we were seeing more of these incentives coming out, cow horse decided that it was time to, you know, revamp ours.