All the barrel racers are asking: What’s the fastest time ever ran on an American (or Canadian) standard pattern?
Here’s the ones we know of. Research base compiled by Kayla Jones, host of The Money Barrel.
Kathy Grimes ran a 16.31 at Burley, Idaho, on Aug. 22, 2026, and nobody in this country has ever run a standard pattern faster. It happened in the same arena where the previous mark fell, which is the strongest thing anybody can say for it: same ground, same pattern, a year apart. That run now sits atop a list that stretches from Brandon Cullins and A Cornerstone at the Lazy E in 2018 to a slot race in Loveland, Colorado to Round 8 of the only NFR ever held on a full-size pattern, and the list keeps getting company.
The standard pattern is the sport’s honest yardstick. The WPRA standard calls for a 60-foot score line, 90 feet between the first and second barrels and 105 feet from each of those to the third. Every rodeo arena and every jackpot building squeezes or stretches from there, which is why a 13.4 at the Thomas & Mack in Las Vegas and a 16.5 in Guthrie, Oklahoma can both be world-class runs. When the ground is right and the pattern is full-size, the 16.4s are the sport’s four-minute mile.
A note on the math before the list. Pro rodeos report times in hundredths and the big futurity and derby events report thousandths, so a rodeo 16.56 is ranked here as 16.560. Runs made on shortened score lines are excluded; the community has policed that line hard ever since a 16.415 run on a 45-foot score line in Texas was rejected as a record in 2015.
The list
1. 16.31: Kathy Grimes and KG Just Money
Cassia County Fair & Rodeo, Burley, Idaho, August 22, 2026. Grimes won it for $3,931, a third of a second clear of Michelle Alley at 16.64, on the 2020 buckskin gelding she calls Showie (PC Frenchmans Hayday x KG Justiceweexpected x Judge Cash). She bred him, she owns him and she runs him, and he is out of her own KG Justiceweexpected. Burley is the same arena where Makenna Shook set the WPRA standard-pattern rodeo record at 16.53 the summer before, which is what makes the number land: same ground, same pattern, a year apart. It is the fastest standard-pattern time BarrelRacing.com can document at a professional rodeo in North America, and it is nearly 0.15 faster than anything else on this list.
2. 16.457: Brandon Cullins and A Cornerstone
Lance Graves International Barrel Racing Championships, Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, Oklahoma, February 2018. Cullins piloted Sarah Griffin’s gelding A Cornerstone (Brookstone Bay x Speedy Petitti x Lanes Leinster) to a 16.457 in the Wednesday Open on what producers confirmed was a full standard set. Barrel Racing Report called it an unofficial break of the North American standard-pattern record, and nothing verified has touched it since.
3. 16.476: Michelle Alley and Lipstick N Stilletos
Ruby Buckle Central Futurity, Round 1, Lazy E Arena, April 23, 2024. Heather Moeller’s mare (RR Mistakelly x Seis Caress x Tres Seis) put up the fastest run in Pink Buckle and Ruby Buckle history as a futurity horse, a record inside the building that still stands. It edged Pozzi Tonozzi’s long-cited 16.479 by three thousandths, and only the Cullins run has ever beaten it.
4. 16.479: Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi and Kisskiss Bangbang
Mile Hi Showdown slot race, The Ranch, Loveland, Colorado, September 2015. This is the run the WPRA still cites as the fastest recorded American time on a standard, made on a pattern measured by a WPRA circuit director. “Mona,” a Dash Ta Fame daughter out of CD Nick Bar, held the benchmark for a decade and counting.
5. 16.49: Sydney Graham and Dupont First
Mountain Valley Stampede, Heber City, Utah, August 1, 2026. Graham won it for $7,740 aboard the horse she calls Trump, 0.17 clear of Tricia Aldridge, and took down Makenna Shook’s 16.53 from Burley the summer before. It is the fastest time BarrelRacing.com can document at a professional rodeo. No governing body has ratified it. Read the full story of the run.
6. 16.521: Brandon Cullins and MJ Segers Fast Lane
Pink Buckle Derby, Round 2, Lazy E Arena, October 4, 2023. Cullins again, this time on Grant and Rayel Little’s mare (The Goodbye Lane x SKS Running Faucet x Diamond Faucet), breaking Vauna Walker’s five-year-old Pink Buckle record on the way to the derby title.
7. 16.53: Makenna Shook and XV Mario
Cassia County Fair & Rodeo, Burley, Idaho, August 16, 2025. The fastest standard-pattern rodeo time WPRA has recognized as a record. Kathy Grimes and Sydney Graham have both since gone faster, and neither of those runs has been ratified. Shook, a rookie from Needville, Texas, and XV Mario (RR Mistakelly x XV Watch Me Rock x Famous Bugs) took down Hailey Kinsel’s 16.56 from the 2020 NFR. The gelding was patterned by Brandon Cullins, whose fingerprints are all over this list.
8. 16.531: Kay Blandford and Born Ivory James
Pink Buckle Open, Round 2, Lazy E Arena, October 13, 2024. The veteran NFR qualifier and JP7C Properties’ buckskin mare (Born Ta Be Famous x Chase This Ivory x Ivory James) led the round with one of the fastest runs ever made at a Buckle event.
9. 16.54: Carlee Otero and Blingolena
Gooding Pro Rodeo, Andy James Arena, Gooding, Idaho, August 22, 2026. Otero won Gooding for $7,432 on the 2018 gelding she calls Sly (Blazin Jetolena x Dash Of Bling x Dash Ta Fame), nearly two-tenths clear of Tayla Moeykens at 16.73. WPRA has described Gooding as a standard pattern in its own coverage of the rodeo.
10. 16.551: Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi and Tres Chasin Babe PZ
Pink Buckle Futurity, Round 2, Lazy E Arena, October 6, 2023. “Rosie,” a Tres Seis daughter owned by Teton Ridge, won the round and the average in the same week Cullins ran his 16.521, a futurity horse outrunning nearly every open horse in the country.
11. 16.554: Jordynn Knight and Runnin Ron
Xtreme Nampa Mini Million, Ford Idaho Horse Park, Nampa, Idaho, July 2026. The newest run on the list. Knight and the Tres Seis gelding (Tres Seis x Love Shack x Holland Ease) won the Mini Million 1D worth $5,669, and the same run swept the Sunday Open and Bonus Bucks 1Ds.
12. 16.557: Jordynn Knight and Dashing French Belle
Same building, same week. “Barbie” (Dash Ta Fame x French Bar Belle x Frenchmans Guy), owned by Carley and Brad Knight, ran second in the 1D three thousandths behind her stablemate.
13. 16.558: Ceri Ward and GamblingSlick
Pink Buckle Futurity, Round 2, Lazy E Arena, October 2025. The fastest run of the 2025 Pink Buckle, and further proof that the futurity round two in Guthrie has become the fastest set of conditions in the sport.
14. 16.56: Hailey Kinsel and DM Sissy Hayday
Round 8, Wrangler NFR, Globe Life Field, Arlington, Texas, December 2020. The pandemic-year NFR is the only one ever run on a standard pattern, and “Sister” (PC Frenchmans Hayday) turned in the only run of those ten rounds fast enough for this list. It stood as the WPRA record for nearly five years until Shook’s 16.53.
15. 16.567: Vauna Walker and French Goodbye
Inaugural Pink Buckle Futurity, Lazy E Arena, October 2018. Walker and French Goodbye, by The Goodbye Lane, set the original Buckle-event standard and left Guthrie as the event’s high-money earner with $98,281. The record lasted five years before Cullins and another Goodbye Lane took it down.
16. 16.57: Hailey Kinsel and DM Sissy Hayday
Fiesta Days Rodeo, Spanish Fork, Utah, July 2025. Worth $14,279 and a Spanish Fork arena record that had belonged to Ivy Conrado-Saebens for nine years. The mare was 14 when she made this run.
17. 16.573: Ashley Schafer and HP Hotrod
Ruby Buckle Central, Lazy E Arena, April 2025. The young stallion (Dash Ta Fame x Rods Last Ladybug) ran his 16.573 in the futurity’s second round and backed it up in the open. A 4-year-old on this list is its own kind of statement.
- Ashley Schafer and HP Hotrod Add Kinder Cup Slot Race Title and $22K to 4-Year-Old Stallion’s Resume
18. 16.58: Jodee Miller and M R Im On Fire Guys
Ellensburg Rodeo, Round 2, Ellensburg, Washington, September 2024. The bay roan stallion by French Streaktovegas set an arena record at one of the great outdoor setups in the Northwest.
19. 16.59 (tie): Hailey Kinsel and DM Sissy Hayday
Mountain Valley Stampede, Heber City, Utah, August 2024. A $7,747 weekend and Sister’s third appearance in the top 20, a year before the Spanish Fork record run.
20. 16.59 (tie): Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi and Jets Top Gun
That Famous Preston Night Rodeo, Preston, Idaho, August 2023. “Benny” (Blazin Jetolena) ran this one during Pozzi Tonozzi’s 2023 world-title season.
21. 16.590 (tie): Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi and Ima Famous Babe
Lance Graves International, Lazy E Arena, February 2018. “Katniss” (Dash Ta Fame x Streakin Six Babe) won the first round of the five-year-old futurity at the same event where Cullins ran the 16.457. The late mare, who died in 2022 at nine, remains one of the fastest horses Pozzi Tonozzi ever threw a leg over.
Just Outside the 20
Two runs got squeezed out of the numbered list by Graham and Otero. Neither one stops being fast because the list only holds 20.
22. 16.593: Michelle Alley and Lipstick N Stilletos
Ruby Buckle Central Derby, Round 2, Lazy E Arena, April 2025. The mare’s second entry on the list.
23. 16.603: Kassie Mowry and Force The Goodbye
Pink Buckle Derby, Round 2, Lazy E Arena, October 2025. Mowry and The Goodbye Lane’s daughter closed out the top 20 in the same round that produced three other runs on this page. Round 2 in Guthrie is where the record book gets rewritten.
Knocking on the door: the 16.60s
The next tier reads like a who’s who, and half of these were arena or association records when they were run.
• 16.605 Kaiden Ayres and Oliver Cromwell, Pink Buckle, Round 2, Guthrie, Oklahoma, October 2024
• 16.61 Hailey Kinsel and DM Sissy Hayday, Kansas’ Biggest Rodeo, Phillipsburg, Kansas, August 2021 (arena record)
• 16.617 Taylor Miniat and JH Single Lady, Pink Buckle Derby, Round 2, October 2025
• 16.62 McKenna Coronado and KT Shine Down, Reno Rodeo, Round 2, June 2025 (arena record)
• 16.63 Hailey Kinsel and DM Sissy Hayday, Dodge City Roundup, Round 2, August 2020 (the WPRA rodeo record at the time)
• 16.631 Chloe Gray and Guys On Firewater, Ruby Buckle Open, Guthrie, Oklahoma, April 2024
• 16.65 Ivy Conrado-Saebens and CFour Tibbie Stinson, Fiesta Days Rodeo, Spanish Fork, Utah, July 2016
• 16.68 Benette Barrington-Little and JL Dash Ta Heaven, Dodge City Roundup, August 2011, the run that started the modern record chase
• 16.686 Scamper Cole and Ima Epic Hustler, Ruby Buckle Open, Guthrie, Oklahoma, April 2023
• 16.693 Heidi Gunderson and Wonder If Im Lucky, Ruby Buckle Central, Guthrie, Oklahoma, April 2026
How the WPRA rodeo record has fallen
Strip the list down to WPRA pro rodeos only and the record line reads like a relay. Benette Barrington-Little set the mark at 16.68 in Dodge City in 2011. Ivy Conrado-Saebens took it to 16.65 at Spanish Fork in 2016. Hailey Kinsel lowered it twice in 2020, first to 16.63 back in Dodge City, then to 16.56 under the lights at Globe Life Field in Arlington. It took a rookie to break the run: Makenna Shook and XV Mario, 16.53, on a Saturday in Burley, Idaho in August 2025. Every horse in that chain except XV Mario carries Dash Ta Fame blood up close, and XV Mario’s sire RR Mistakelly also put Lipstick N Stilletos at No. 2 on the all-time list.
The Two Fastest Runs in Canada
Canada is not in the list above, and that is a measurement problem rather than a respect problem. Neither the Calgary Stampede nor Royal Crown Canada publishes pattern dimensions, so there is no way to hold either run to the same standard the 20 above were held to. Both are worth knowing anyway, and Calgary in particular is a rodeo full of American cardholders. WPRA runs its own Calgary qualifier at the Western Regional in Salina, Utah, and the 2026 field was overwhelmingly American.
16.56: Hayle Gibson-Stillwell and Buncha Dinero
Calgary Stampede, Calgary, Alberta, July 12, 2026. Gibson-Stillwell ran it in the nine-man round on Showdown Sunday aboard Buncha Dinero, the 2019 palomino mare she calls Piper (PC Frenchmans Hayday x Rambunchkie x Bellamy Road) and the one she bred and owns herself. It is the Stampede arena record, and it was the third one set at the 2026 Stampede. Kassie Mowry and Force The Goodbye held the mark at 16.74 coming in. Michelle Alley and Lipstick N Stilletos took it at 16.72 in the first round of Pool C, Mowry answered with a 16.68 in the same round, and Gibson-Stillwell ended it. The run carried her into the Showdown, where she was second to Hailey Kinsel for $20,000. Full Calgary Stampede results.
16.595: Taylor Cherry and Lynns Honor
Royal Crown Canada, Calnash Ag Event Centre, Ponoka, Alberta, September 2025. Cherry ran it in the first go of the Royal Crown Futurity on Lynns Honor, a 2020 mare she owns (Guys Casanova Cowboy x Lynns Blue Valentine x Hayes Blue Valentine), bred by Doug and Debbie Willis. Royal Crown’s format let the one trip cash five times: the Royal Crown Futurity first go, the Open Futurity first go, the High Stakes Slot Race, the Royal Crown Open first go and the Open first go. It was worth $19,747 to Cherry off that single run, plus $2,599 to Guys Casanova Cowboy and $1,114 to the breeders. Royal Crown Canada held two events in 2025, Claresholm in May and Ponoka in September. This one is Ponoka.
Standard, Centered, and Why Brazil’s Numbers Look the Same But Aren’t
The rule that decides it
The number everybody quotes is 90, 105 and 60. The rule that actually decides how fast a pattern runs is WPRA Rule 12.12.9: when setting barrels on the marker, the center of the barrel shall be positioned over where the marker comes out of the ground, and judges must check that every barrel is properly centered each time the pattern is set up.
Centered. Not inside the stake, not tucked against it. And the judges are told to check it every time the pattern goes up, which tells you something about how often it does not happen. Setting the barrel inside the stake instead of over it is a real practice and a regional one. In parts of the country barrel setters are taught to work fence, stake, barrel. It saves a step, it shortens the pattern, and unless somebody walks it with a tape nobody ever knows.
The rulebook also sets the room around the pattern: barrels one and two at least 18 feet off the sides of the arena, barrel three at least 25 feet off the end, and the score line at least 70 feet from the end of the arena or the end of a run-out alley. Those distances are ceilings, not targets. No pattern may be set larger than the standard, and the largest pattern the arena and the ground will permit should be set, up to those numbers.
Brazil’s numbers
Here is where it gets interesting, because the Brazilian pattern is not bigger or smaller than ours on paper. It is almost exactly the same. ABQM’s rulebook sets 27.50 meters between barrels one and two, 32 meters from each of those to barrel three, and 18.30 meters from the score line to barrels one and two. Converted, that is 90.22 feet, 104.99 feet and 60.04 feet. Within inches of ours.
The difference is in how the tape is read. Article 502 says the barrel-to-barrel distances are measured da borda externa, from the outer edge of the barrel, the edge nearest the fence, to the outer edge of the next one. The score line alone is measured do centro dos tambores, from the center.
So on both barrel-to-barrel legs the Brazilian tape stops at the drum instead of running through it. Measured the way ours is measured, center to center, each of those legs is one full barrel diameter tighter. A 200-liter steel drum and a 55-gallon steel drum are the same object, about 23 inches across, so each of those legs gives up roughly 1.9 feet.
What that is worth
It is not just two shorter legs. Barrel three gets triangulated off a narrower base, so it pulls about 1.7 feet closer to the score line and shortens the run home too. The turns themselves are identical, same drum, same arc. Add it up and the ridden line on a Brazilian pattern comes out roughly 5.8 feet shorter than on a true WPRA standard. At the speed a horse is traveling through a 16-second run, call it a little under a quarter of a second. That is our arithmetic off the two rulebooks, not a published figure.
It also does not settle the argument. Give Anderson Carreira’s 16.080 the full two-tenths back and it is still a 16.28, faster than anything ever recorded on an American standard pattern. The ground is the other half of the answer. A large share of the Brazilian records have come off one track, Haras Raphaela in Tietê, São Paulo, and that is not an accident either.
The 2018 runs that never made a list
The cleanest illustration of what centered means happened in Waco. At the 2018 ANHA Shootout, Aug. 29 through Sept. 3, Jennifer Sharp and Six French Smooches clocked a 16.490 in the Shootout round, only to be eclipsed by youth rider Patton Ann Lynch and JJJ Bonnie Rae at 16.463. London Gorham and Cashin Chicks won the Sunday Open in 16.643. Barrel Racing Report carried all three at the time and, three weeks later, described Sharp’s run as a 16.490 on a standard pattern.
Then the barrel placement became the story, and the placement was the whole question. To be a true WPRA standard the barrels sit centered on the marker, not inside it, which is also the key difference between our standard and Brazil’s. What most people did not know was that the pattern had been measured as a standard with the barrels centered to the distance, and then the stakes were set on the outside of the barrels to make it easier on barrel setters working 500-plus runners a day. The producers re-measured after the race was over.
Here is the part anybody can check. If those runs were accepted as standard-pattern times, Lynch’s 16.463 would sit at No. 2 on the list above and Sharp’s 16.490 would sit at No. 4, tied with Sydney Graham to the thousandth. Neither one appears on any recognized standard-pattern record list, including this one. Eight years on, the sport answered quietly.
FAQ’s
What about the world record?
Brazil owns the conversation, and the number has moved twice since this list first published. The current claim is 16.052, run by Sidnei Júnior and EF Eurus TA Fame on July 6, 2026, in the Tira-Teima round at the 7º ANTT Barrel Show at Haras Raphaela in Tietê, São Paulo. It is carried by the Brazilian outlet Cavalus and has not been posted by ABQM, so treat it as claimed rather than settled. Before that it was 16.080, Anderson Carreira and Black Cat Lider, on March 13, 2025, at the 16º Grand Prix Haras Raphaela. Further back, Evelino Rocha and Rollin In The Fame ran 16.399 on Sept. 8, 2017, per ABQM’s own announcement of that record. Sanctioning and pattern verification differ between countries, which is why American lists are kept separately, but the gap is real and the Brazilian futurity programs are not slowing down.
What is a standard barrel racing pattern?
The WPRA standard pattern uses a 60-foot score line, 90 feet between the first and second barrels and 105 feet from each of those barrels to the third. Most rodeo arenas run smaller or modified versions, which is why standard-pattern times are tracked as their own record book.
What is the fastest barrel racing time ever run on a standard pattern in the United States?
Brandon Cullins and A Cornerstone ran 16.457 at the Lance Graves International at the Lazy E Arena in 2018, reported at the time as an unofficial North American record. The fastest run the WPRA cites is Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi’s 16.479 on Kisskiss Bangbang from 2015, and Michelle Alley’s 16.476 on Lipstick N Stilletos is the fastest ever at a Pink Buckle or Ruby Buckle event.
Who holds the WPRA standard-pattern record at a pro rodeo?
Makenna Shook and XV Mario, 16.53, set August 16, 2025 at the Cassia County Fair & Rodeo in Burley, Idaho. It broke Hailey Kinsel and DM Sissy Hayday’s 16.56 from Round 8 of the 2020 NFR.
Why are NFR times in Las Vegas so much faster?
The Thomas & Mack Center pattern is much smaller than a standard set, which is why NFR winning runs sit in the low 13-second range on a fast day. The 2020 NFR at Globe Life Field in Arlington is the only finals ever run on a full standard pattern.