Interview with Dale Kling of Breeders Classic Bucking Horse Sale, January 2018
In what year did you start your Dummy Colt Futurity Competition at your sale?
2002 at Four Bears Casino, New Town, North Dakota. We bucked them the first day, and then again on another day of the sale to really see what was there.
What made you decide to have the Futurity Competition for dummy bucking at your sale?
It was a way to promote the industry and help breeders financially with cash flow, selling their horses at an earlier age. It also eliminated the issue with buyer confidence on older horses like 7 years old or older as some of those had already been picked through. I started with inviting the best breeders in the world, which took months and months of work prior to each sale, so that the buyers had confidence they were getting a good horse they could rodeo with for years to come, getting something young and fresh.
How many dummy trips should a young colt have on them, in your experience?
In my experience, their age designates the average amount of trips, so if they are a two year old, then 2 trips, and if they are a three year old, then 3 trips. By the time you have that amount of trips on a 3 year old horse, you know what you have. One more or one less trips each year won’t make much of a difference, but you can take it out of them with a bad experience or bucking them too much. It’s so important, so so important in flanking them and cinching them right in order to progress a horse properly. As you work with them and a horse matures up the level, just like a kid does, then as a 4 year old, they are ready for rider trips.
How have the colts done in their careers that were bought at your sale through the Futurity
Competitions?
The best of the best out of the Breeders Classic Bucking Horse Sale are still a going concern. Horses like River Boat Annie, God Father, Biff, Make Up Face, Slick Willy, Wet Willy, Sadie’s Gal, Virgil, out of my own program, other horses like Black Coffee, Hylo Hills, Alberta Child, Chirrikawa, Black Knight, Close Call, just to name a few, have done very well from the Futurity part of the sale. Many have multiple trips to the NFR, are now part of their contractor’s breeding programs, and they are still bringing cowboys to the pay window with the longevity of their career. It’s been a win win for both the breeders and the buyers.