Joy Wargo won the 2026 Colorado Classic Futurity 1D average on Chasin Tres Cans, a 2022 Tres Seis stallion out of the Eddie Stinson mare VF Chasin Cans, at the Montrose County Fairgrounds.
After finishing seventh in the first round, she won the second in 14.912 and posted the fastest two-run time in the field for the aggregate title.
Between the open futurity and the Colorado Classic stallion incentive the colt carries through Tres Seis, the win was worth about $25,300 in futurity earnings alone.
The turnaround came from one overnight adjustment.
“The next morning I decided I was just going to get onto him about, ‘Hey, follow my hand, you better come to it quicker,’” Wargo said. “He was a little lazy, and then he was like, ‘Oh, okay, you’re serious.’ I just needed him to be sharper.”
The colt came to Wargo’s barn almost by chance. Pauels called asking her to take some horses, and Wargo, already full, was ready to say no, then heard the breeding and talked herself into taking him on.
“When she told me how he was bred, I’m like, ‘You should probably try that,’” Wargo said, meaning she should take him. “He’s always been a great mover, always been super athletic, and rode really, really well.”
Wargo credits the mare side, the VF Chasin Cans dam, as much as the Tres Seis cross.
“His mother was great, and obviously his dad’s great. I think that plays a big part of it,” Wargo said. “But he’s been fun since the very beginning. From the moment I sat down on him, he had a feel that I got excited about.”
Wargo has spent two decades making futurity horses, and her read on a good one is mostly about restraint.
“When you have a good horse, you have a good horse, and if you can just not mess it up,” she said. “A lot of times it’s not overdoing things when you have a really good one.”
She built the business the hard way out of Wyoming, starting with cast-off colts while she worked a day job. Her first standout, the futurity horse she calls Smoke, won $55,000 and let her train full time.
Her made horses have lifted other riders since. Wargo developed Vegas Firefighter, the mare Taylor Langdon later bred to produce Kissmybuttgoodbye, the Colorado Classic Derby champion in 2026. The stud also ran to second in the Run at the Rose Derby the weekend before, behind Langdon’s other winner, Hes Got The Sting. Another, WildChildsGotCashUno, carried Kelly Allen to a top-20 world finish and is owned today by Blake Molle, a recent The American Rodeo finalist.
Off the futurity pen, Wargo and fellow horsemen Jolene Montgomery and Ashley Schafer run Between the Reins, a digital subscription platform aimed to make affordable training help easier for everyday riders to find.
“We needed to do something to give back to the industry,” Wargo said. “There’s a need out there for information. We like to show people that training horses is hard, and it doesn’t matter if you do it all the time or not. It’s hard.”
“Chase,” is a fan-favorite amongst BTR’s following, and he’s got a huge support system that’s been able to watch him from his first days on the pattern.
Wargo believes she finally has the colt figured out.
“Now I’m ready to go win a lot,” she said.
The 2026 Colorado Classic ran June 11-13 at the Montrose County Fairgrounds. For full results, visit coloradoclassicstallions.com.