Ruby Buckle

The Ruby Buckle is a barrel racing stallion incentive program launched in 2019 as a regional companion to the Pink Buckle, designed to widen access to stallion-incentive money across the country. It's modeled after the Pink Buckle's rules and structure, but built around a lower cost of entry for stallion owners — Ruby Buckle stallions pay an annual enrollment of $7,000, compared to the Pink Buckle's $25,000 — with a cap of 150 stallions allowed in the program. All 50 Pink Buckle-enrolled stallions are automatically included in that roster, meaning Ruby Buckle-eligible offspring pull from a wider pool of sires overall. Owners of eligible progeny pay an annual $200 nomination fee to keep their horses eligible to compete, a payment that must be renewed every year.

Rather than a single centralized event, the Ruby Buckle runs three regional races each year — East, Central, and Western — making the incentive more geographically accessible to mare owners and contestants nationwide. In its first year, the program was projected to pay out roughly $1.6 million, split evenly across the three regional stops at about $533,333 each; each regional event also features a $100,000 Pink Buckle side-pot open exclusively to Pink Buckle-eligible horses. The program has grown substantially since then — recent regional stops have paid over $1.2 million individually — and by 2023 the Pink and Ruby Buckles combined to pay out a record $7,265,000 for the year. Like its sister program, Ruby Buckle added a "9 & Older Missed Nomination" option in 2026, letting owners of aged horses sired by any past or present enrolled stallion pay a one-time fee to bring previously ineligible horses into the program.