Kissmybuttgoodbye spent the Run at the Rose Derby in his stablemate’s shadow, running reserve to Hes Got The Sting.
A week later at the Colorado Classic, the buckskin got a title of his own, winning the MVP Maturity stallion incentive 1D average for breeder and owner Taylor Langdon.
- She Brings the Sting: Taylor Langdon Goes 1-2 at Run at the Rose Derby
- Joy Wargo and Tres Chasin Cans Top Colorado Classic 2026
Brooklyn Stallone and Divide The Seis won the open MVP Maturity average and the Open derby win. Because that mare isn’t stallion-incentive eligible, the incentive aggregate fell to Kissmybuttgoodbye, who was second in the open overall.
Kissmybuttgoodbye (The Goodbye Lane x Vegas Firefighter x Ima Firefighter) is a 5-year-old stallion with more than $122,000 earned and a growing list of people calling to breed to him. But the colt Langdon calls Strutter is really the next chapter of his dam’s story.
Langdon’s father bought her Vegas Firefighter as a weanling, a Christmas present. The mare became the once-in-a-lifetime kind.
“She was so good-minded, so much fun, and gave you everything she had, every run,” Langdon said. “She’s one that keeps you trying to find another one just like her.”
Vegas Firefighter came up under trainer Joy Wargo, who took the mare through the futurities and rodeoed her before Langdon got her back. Wargo won the Colorado Classic open futurity on Chasin Tres Cans the same weekend Strutter won the maturity, and she still lights up about the mare.
“I got to train and run that mare, and it was one of the first outside horses I did really well on,” Wargo said. “She was going to be a producer whether she ran barrels or not.”
The mare carried Langdon to No. 17 in the world, by Wargo’s count, before an injury a year and a half into her rodeo career sent her home for good.
“She lives her life at home as the queen of our place,” Langdon said. “There’ll never be another one like her.”
Langdon started breeding the mare, and Strutter was her first foal to reach the arena. He won more than $100,000 as a futurity horse and has already passed his dam’s lifetime recorded earnings.
“It was such a surreal moment to have one that does what he did right off the bat,” Langdon said.
He nearly wasn’t a stallion at all.
“We never really intended on having a stud, but as beautiful and good-minded as he is, how do you cut one like that?” Langdon said. “Everything you show him, he shows up to do it.”
Strutter has done a little of everything. Langdon’s partner, Ty Wallace, has won better than $30,000 heading on him, and Langdon runs barrels.
“I cannot say enough good things about his mind,” Langdon said. “He shows up every time. He’s there to work, there to please.”
At Run at the Rose, he and Hes Got The Sting, who share a pasture at home, ran one-two in the Derby.
“They get turned out together. They’re buds,” Langdon said. “So it made it that much more special that they could go first and second.”
Every time Strutter wins, the calls pick up, and Langdon says many of them trace back to his mother.
“A lot of people breed to him just because of her, because they remember her,” Langdon said. “She was truly incredible, and it’s so neat that people want to breed to him solely because of that mare.”
Strutter stands enrolled in incentive programs including the Young Guns League and the Colorado Classic, so his foals carry that eligibility forward. Next year, Langdon plans to point him at rodeos.
“They know he can win in the futurities, they know he can win at the derbies,” Langdon said. “Now I think we have to prove he can win at the rodeo scene.”
For Langdon, every check Strutter adds belongs partly to the mare at home.
“It’s so special for that mare,” she said. “We believed in her, and now everybody gets to see why.”
