Haven Meged and Bad Boon Baby RB won the 4 & Under average at the Gold Buckle Futurity with a 909.39 on four head for $9,000, marking the first major futurity win of the 2021 mare’s career.
Bad Boon Baby RB, by Badboonarising out of Shake Dat Thing 104 by Abrakadabracre, has been one of the most eye-catching prospects in Meged’s program. After a tough week at the AQHA World Show, Meged added a jerk line hoping the adjustment would clean up her scores in Abilene. It worked.
“She’s honestly a pretty special mare,” Meged said. “She’s been a standout from the get-go and I have high hopes for her. She let the rope bounce just a hair at the World Show and they docked her. She was great everywhere else. But she pulled through here and got her first big win.”
From Cutter to Calf Horse
Meged purchased Bad Boon Baby RB out of the Western Bloodstock sale after she’d been started as a cutter. The move to calf roping unlocked what cutting never could.
“They cut on her and she sucked,” Meged laughed. “But she’s fit this job since day one.”
Ten Horses, One Dominant Weekend
Meged showed ten horses in Abilene across the 4 & Under and 6 & Under classes and nearly all of them delivered. He made the short round on every horse he swung a leg over and only two missed a check, a testament to how dialed his program has become.
“This is pretty rewarding for our program,” Meged said. “All 10 of them made the short round and almost all of them won money. We’re blessed with really good ones right now.”
A big part of that success comes from the way Meged and his wife Shelby split the training workload.
“Shelby does a lot of the box work,” Meged said. “She’s amazing in the box. I do the tracking and getting them to stop but she does the tedious time-consuming stuff.”
Depth Over Flash
Their focus isn’t on swinging for the fences with every prospect. It’s about building depth that fits every kind of setup they’ll encounter.
“You don’t have to have the Lil Punches and the Smokes every time,” Meged said. “You just need good solid horses for different setups.”
Bad Boon Baby RB will get a month and a half off after her Abilene win while Meged heads to the NFR. He already has her long-term path laid out and he isn’t shy about what she could become.
“I think she has the big-time tools to be an NFR horse,” Meged said.
Meged will shift gears next and compete in the 6 & Under heading, keeping the momentum rolling through the rest of the Abilene event.