The National Cutting Horse Association will pass a milestone in the next few weeks when all-time purses paid out at NCHA-produced and approved shows will pass the $600 million mark.

The $600 million figure represents purses won by cutting horses since the NCHA’s foundation in 1946. Since that time, 62,900 horses have earned paychecks at NCHA shows. That makes cutting the richest performance horse discipline by far.

According to official NCHA records, individual horses have earned anywhere from a dollar or so back in the early days of the sport, to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, at latest count, 1,004 individual cutting horses have earned more than $100,000 in NCHA competition. There are 243 horses that have topped the $200,000 mark, and 78 have made $300,000 or more.

Interestingly, Poco Lena (pictured), the first inductee into the NCHA Hall of Fame, was foaled in 1949 and closed out her career with $99,819 in earnings. No horse foaled in the 1950s passed that mark, and Mr Holey Sox, a 1964 foal, was the oldest horse to earn a six-figure income.

With purses paid out easily topping $40 million annually in the last several years, NCHA is on pace to reach billion-dollar bragging rights within a decade.