Page 14 - February 2021

AQHA RACING UPDATE
Apologies, friends, for missing last month’s edition. The plethora of duties to both manage the Champions Selection Committee meeting and prepare the ensuing AQHA Racing Cham- pions Awards Ceremony kept me from providing my friends at Speedhorse a submission.
On January 12, 2022, we conducted the 2021 AQHA Racing Champions Awards
at Heritage Place and the winners are now enjoying the glory of having achieved the prestigious honors. The event afforded in- person attendance or the option of viewing the production on AQHA.com, Facebook Live on Q-Racing, or the Cowboy Channel Plus app. A delayed show was shown on The Cowboy Channel’s main station, and I hope you were able to catch it. If not, a replay has been posted on Facebook, and at AQHA.com/ Racing. Exposing a wide variety of audiences via these platforms is great for the industry. But for me, the evening is just plain fun. It is an honor to visit with all the award recipients because I understand how lives are changed that night, and that memories are made that will last a lifetime. I hope you were able to watch it and enjoyed it as much as I did.
2022 AQHA Convention
Now the Racing Department team must turn our efforts to preparing for the 2022 AQHA Convention. This year’s event is slated for February 25-28 at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Our Racing discipline is represented by three meetings: the Graded Stakes Committee meeting on Friday, February 25, the Racing Committee meeting on Saturday the 26th and continuing Sunday the 27th, and then finally the Racing Council meeting will be conducted on the afternoon of Sunday, February 27. The Racing Committee meeting agenda will be available online, found at AQHA.com’s Con- vention page. We open the Racing Committee meetings to guests, so if you have an interest in
being there, we want you to join us! I have col- laborated with the Chairmen to craft the agenda, but it hasn’t yet been approved by the Executive Committee, so I am unable to offer details in this article. But please go to the website as I am certain they will be posted by the time you are reading this. I am sure there are topics that are
of interest to you, and to your dedication to an industry we love. As usual, there will be church on Sunday morning, and I am always particu- larly pleased that our Racetrack Chaplaincy of America Executive Director, Dan Waits, travels from Kentucky to lead us in worship. He does an excellent job and represents racing well! Please be sure and check the website for full details.
We hope to see you in Las Vegas and encourage you to register in advance of the event at https:// www.aqha.com/aqha-convention.
AQHA Racing Challenge
We were pleased to release our 2022 AQHA Regional Challenge Stakes schedule in December. The program grows every year, with an increased interest in hosting our Regional Stakes. That is outstanding! Moreover, we have had steady sup-
port in hosting the Challenge Championships. We are going to Horseshoe Indianapolis (formerly Indiana Grand) for the first time this year. Then, the Challenge Championships return to Lone Star Park in 2023, after not having our event hosted there since 2015. While at Convention, we will be discussing some innovative ideas for the Chal- lenge’s format in the future, so we hope you are there to hear the ideas. But, for publication now, we are quite pleased to offer a robust 2022 Chal- lenge regional stakes schedule and you can find the full, two-page schedule in this issue.
As I bring this report to a close, I pray that 2022 is a fantastic year for you, and for your American Quarter Horses. Last year at this time I prayed for healing. Now in 2022, I find that we still need healing... healing for ourselves, our racing industry, and all that has been impacted by COVID. However, despite the continued emergence of new variants, society has returned to some normalcy in allowing our tracks and other facilities to be open.
I am certainly thankful for that. So, for this fact among others, I begin 2022 with a grateful heart. Know that I keep your wellbeing in my prayers, so that I can see you at one of our racetracks soon!
2021 AQHA RACING CHAMPIONS
February 2022
by Janet VanBebber, AQHA Chief Racing Officer
12 SPEEDHORSE February 2022