March 3, 2006 – The American Quarter Horse Association announced it will pay $3,912,279 of Incentive Fund money for the 2005 show season. Almost 10,000 checks were mailed to recipients of more than 9,000 Incentive Fund nominated horses earning points in 2005.

Annually, there are about 3,000 stallions and about 14,000 foals nominated into the program. In 2005 the top horse earned 853 points.

The Incentive Fund is a multi-million dollar program involving stallion and foal nominations with paybacks to the stallion nominators, foal nominators and owners of the competing horses. The program is owned, managed and operated by AQHA. In 21 years of existence and 19 years of payout, the total award money has increased by more than $3.6 million.

The Incentive Fund utilizes AQHA-approved show points to determine paybacks. Each point earned at an AQHA-approved show in the open or amateur division by an Incentive Fund nominated horse is worth a specific amount.

At the end of every show year, the total number of points earned by Incentive Fund horses is divided by the total amount of money in the fund for that year. This establishes the dollar value for each point. The payout amount is determined by multiplying the value of each point by the number of points earned by a nominated horse.

In the past, the Incentive Fund awarded 10 percent of the total being paid to the nominator of the stallion, 10 percent to the nominator of the foal and 80 percent to the recorded owner of the point-earning horse as of December 31 in the year the points were earned.

This year, the Incentive Fund is awarding 10 percent each to the nominator of the stallion and the foal and 80 percent is paid to the owner at the time the points were earned. Thus, there may be more than one owner check for some horses.

For more information on the Incentive Fund, visit aqha.com/showing/awards/incentive.htmlor call (806) 376-4811.

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