Barrel Horse News celebrates 30 years of bringing barrel racers the most comprehensive coverage of barrel racing across all ages, divisions and disciplines.
Founded in the offices of the award-winning Western performance horse magazine Quarter Horse News under the parentage of Cowboy Publishing Group, owned by William S. Morris III of Morris Communications, Barrel Horse News celebrates 30 years in 2026.
While barrel racing in the United States has a long, rich history, exposure for the sport hasn’t always been as abundant. Barrel racing can be traced back to the 1930s, but it was in the 1940s when it had its first surge in recognition. In 1948, the Girls Rodeo Association — which would later become the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association — was formed and marked a milestone in the progress of women’s sports, specifically barrel racing.
Because of those founding members, the sport continued to grow. In 1959, the Rodeo Cowboys Association (which later became the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) held its first National Finals Rodeo in Dallas, Texas. While the team roping, steer roping and barrel racing were not part of that first NFR, those three events took part in their own NFR in Clayton, New Mexico. It was a major milestone in the rodeo history books. The next steppingstone for the barrel racing industry was in December 1967. Thanks to the efforts of Florence Youree, the barrel race was featured at the main NFR.
By the 1970s, barrel futurities were gaining popularity. By the early 1980s, the barrel futurity industry in Texas and Oklahoma was booming. The two major state associations in Texas were the Texas Barrel Racing Association and West Texas Barrel Racing Association. Each held major futurities, the largest in the country at the time. The Old Fort Days Futurity traces its beginnings to this same time period. In 1977, the idea for the OFD Futurity was sprouted, and in 1978, the event held its first futurity with 176 horses nominated for a total purse of $30,929. In 1979, the OFD Derby was added with a maturity added the following year.
In 1980, one of the most substantial movements for the barrel racing futurity industry took place when the Barrel Futurities of America was formed, again spurred on by industry pioneer Youree. She had a vision to create the BFA World Championships in Oklahoma City to attract large numbers of competitors to compete for big payouts. That vision became a reality in 1986 when Oklahoma City hosted the inaugural BFA World Championships.
Around this same time, Western performance horse competition was also having a heyday. In 1978, Quarter Horse News was formed by a small group of investors as a weekly newspaper devoted to the coverage of the Quarter Horse industry. In 1981, the newspaper’s owners entered into a sales agreement with Morris Media Network and chairman of the board and chief executive officer William S. Morris III (Billy Morris). Over the years, QHN garnered a reputation as one of the leading Western performance horse magazines in the country. This would later become the catalyst for Barrel Horse News.
For many years, QHN included coverage of barrel racing events, though in those days it predominately consisted of futurity events. The first events covered included historic events like the Old Fort Days Futurity and the BFA World Championships. Those associations, along with the WPRA, were the forerunners to the growth of the barrel racing industry. Icons like Dale and Florence Youree, Wanda Harper Bush, Troy Crumrine, Talmadge Green and many others paved the way for barrel racing to flourish into a now more than $640 million industry.
Another significant creation was EquiStat, the statistical division of Cowboy Publishing Group, in 1985. It began as a source to track earnings in the cutting horse industry and has grown to be the most comprehensive source for tracking barrel racing data, including earnings for horse, rider, owner, breeder and more. The first barrel racing events entered in the EquiStat database were the Old Fort Days Futurity and the BFA World Championships.
In those early days the purses were much smaller, yet the passion and interest in the sport was booming. As the sport grew, interest in barrel racing-specific coverage naturally did as well. In 1992, the barrel racing industry saw yet another landmark moment in its growth when the National Barrel Horse Association was founded. In 1992 Talmadge Green, Pete May, Rick Sykes and Paul Simon sought the help of newspaper, publishing and media leader Billy Morris in the creation of the NBHA. The NBHA revolutionized the sport with the divisional system and enabled the sport to grow exponentially. In 1995, the barrel racing industry paid out an estimated $10 million. Barrel racing coverage needed to expand beyond QHN.
BHN tips its hat to the founding members of the NBHA and their contributions to the barrel racing industry, for without their efforts, BHN would not exist.
In May 1996, BHN produced its inaugural issue — a tabloid-style newspaper — touting the tagline: The Newspaper for Barrel Racers. The staff for the inaugural issue of BHN consisted of executive editor Glory Ann Kurtz; editorial assistant Carol Hockenberry; editorial assistant Nancy Sanders; editorial assistant Teri Lee; copy editor Robert Eubanks; production manager Kathy Cromer; and Kenneth Springer, Cheryl Magoteaux Cody and Diane Bales all serving as correspondents and freelancer writers.
In its 30 years, BHN has seen world champions crowned across many organizations. It’s documented arena records, and through EquiStat, the highest-earning horses and riders of the last three decades. It’s seen the industry grow from $10 million to $640 million and has celebrated the wins of champion barrel racers across professional rodeo, futurities and divisional races alike.
Today, BHN is proud to look back on where the magazine and industry has come and is proud to hold true to the original mission of the most comprehensive news source devoted entirely to the sport of barrel racing.
Thank you to those who came before us, and to you, the readers, for making 30 years possible. We look forward to serving you and the barrel racing industry for another 30 years.
