Draft:Robin Glenn

Beginnings (circa 1976–1981)

Glenn began her career producing sale catalog pages for Out Front Sale Company approximately 48 years before a 2024 profile in Speedhorse Magazine.^[2] In that era, building a catalog was entirely manual — referencing green stud books, year-by-year racing chart books, and hand-typed typeset proofs that took five minutes per page to produce. A 100-horse catalog required weeks of continuous work, often including waking every four hours to restart dot matrix printers. She later reflected that the same work can now be accomplished in a few weeks for a catalog of 1,000 horses.

Glenn observed that traditional paragraph-style pedigrees provided insufficient information to sale buyers, and developed the concept of applying racing-style extended pedigrees — documenting multi-discipline performance earnings, bloodline depth, and produce records — to performance horse sales, an approach that had no precedent in the industry at the time.^[3]

Founding of Robin Glenn Pedigrees (1981–1983)

Glenn formally founded Robin Glenn Pedigrees in 1981. In 1983, at the urging of horseman Robert Shelton, she and her mother began building what would become the RGP Database, starting on a computer with a 10-megabyte hard drive and engaging a college student as programmer. Her stated goal was to ensure every horse received credit for every achievement by combining multi-event performance records with AQHA points and awards on a single pedigree page.^[4]

To build the database, Glenn purchased the entire historical databases of both the National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) and the National Reining Horse Association (NRHA), and began recording National Reined Cow Horse Association (NRCHA) data before that organization formally existed. The database was eventually expanded to cover more than 30 halter and performance organizations across every discipline, with data reaching back to 1946 in some events.

The Carol Rose Catalog and Industry Adoption (circa 1986)

Despite producing catalogs beginning in 1981, the extended pedigree format met with industry skepticism for several years — with some arguing that more detailed information would hurt horses at sale by exposing weaknesses. The turning point came approximately in 1986 when Glenn produced a sale catalog for Carol Rose of Gainesville, Texas, a leading cutting horse operation. The catalog's success demonstrated that documented performance histories added value to horses at auction, and the RGP format began to gain broad adoption across major performance horse sales.^[3]

Today, the extended catalog pedigree format Glenn pioneered is the standard at every major performance horse sale in the United States, including those of the NCHA, NRHA, AQHA World Championship Show, APHA World, NRCHA, and All American Quarter Horse Congress.

Expansion and Institutional Growth (1983–2014)

Over more than three decades, Robin Glenn Pedigrees became the primary catalog and pedigree service for the American Quarter Horse performance industry. By the time of its acquisition in 2014, RGP was producing sale catalogs for Heritage Place, the Los Alamitos Equine Sale, the National Reining Horse Association, Ruidoso Select Yearling Sales, the Texas Quarter Horse Association, and Western Bloodstock, producer of the NCHA's sales, among many others.^[5]

AQHA Acquisition (2014)

On April 11, 2014, AQHA announced the purchase of Robin Glenn Pedigrees, Inc. AQHA cited the acquisition as a means of enabling members to track American Quarter Horse accomplishments across the entire equine industry, enhancing the value of American Quarter Horses. The acquisition was championed by AQHA Second Vice President Dr. Glenn Blodgett, who stated: "The high level of information, experience, devotion to the breed, industry knowledge and integrity blended in the consolidation of AQHA and Robin Glenn Pedigrees is bound to change the American Quarter Horse world in a very positive way."^[5]

RGP remained headquartered in El Reno, Oklahoma, with its full staff retained under Glenn's continued direction. Glenn was named AQHA Director of Data Services, a position she continues to hold. On the acquisition, Glenn stated: "My passion for perpetuating and increasing the success of this wonderful breed is clearly shared by AQHA staff and board members, and our mission will be devoted to promoting all events in which an American Quarter Horse competes."^[5]

Post-Acquisition Innovations (2014–present)

Following the acquisition, Glenn and AQHA introduced several new services combining RGP's money-earning performance records with AQHA's official points and awards system:

• QStallions.com (2014): A dedicated stallion directory, leaderboard, and performance research platform, updated weekly and organized by discipline.

• QData Catalog App (2014): The first mobile sale catalog application for iOS and Android devices, featuring interactive indexes, buyer notes and ratings, photo and video capability, and multi-sale access across archived catalogs.

• $1 Billion Milestone (2015): The RGP Database reached $1 billion in tracked horse earnings, covering 264,000 horses and 1.5 million performance lines.^[4]

• RGP Catalog Builder (2016): A web-based, automated sale catalog production system combining AQHA and RGP data to generate complete pedigree pages, hip numbering, indexes, and print/web/app-ready files.

• QData Rebrand (January 2021): Robin Glenn Pedigrees was officially rebranded as QData, a formal department of AQHA. Glenn retained her title as Director of Data Services.^[1]

• $2 Billion Milestone and 40th Anniversary (2021): The database surpassed $2 billion in tracked earnings, recording $119 million in a single year (2020) across 2,148 events and 26,365 classes.^[6]