G.R. Carter Jr.

G. R. Carter didn’t raise the bar. G. R. Carter is the bar. The all-time-everything jockey is American Quarter Horse racing’s record-leading rider in mounts, with 25,700; in wins, with 4,013; and in money earned, having booted home the earners of $75,900,474. In 2008, G. R. set a single-season earnings record of $5,019,594, breaking the previous record of $4.5 million that he set two years earlier. He was AQHA champion jockey 10 times, twice as many as any other rider, including six years consecutively from 2003 to 2008.

Known for his signature back-flip dismount, the highly sought-after rider racked up 386 wins in stakes, with 100 at the Grade 1 level (including 20 Restricted Grade 1s), including twice in the sport’s marquee event, the All American Futurity, aboard Falling In Loveagain in 1998 and world champion Stolis Winner in ’08. G. R. rode winners of the rich All American and Los Alamitos Super derbies and scored five wins in the Heritage Place Futurity, three in the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity and one in the Texas Classic Futurity.

Along the way, he also picked up the most wins in American Paint racing and in Appaloosa racing, scored 335 victories aboard Thoroughbreds and earned nearly 5,000 wins among breeds overall.

Born February 6, 1968, G. R. grew up with Osage blood in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where he excelled as an athlete and won state championships in gymnastics and wrestling. But what really mattered was horses and roping, loves instilled by his father, mentor and favorite roping partner, George Robert Carter Sr. In order to make money to rope and rodeo, G. R. at age 14 began galloping racehorses and, by his senior year, was riding weekends at Blue Ribbon Downs in Oklahoma, where he earned his first leading rider buckle in 1989.

Today, G. R. lives in Oklahoma City with wife Shaena, whose father, Jerry Burgess, rode champion Bugs Alive In 75 to win the ’75 All American Futurity.

G. R. hung up his flat tack in 2018, but whether heading or heeling at a local jackpot or roping steers at Pendleton and Cheyenne, he never hung up his rope. In 2007, he was half the team that won the Pro-Am at the 2007 World Series of Team Roping, and he and his dad won the 2005 Southwest Regional finals at Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Nor has G. R. hung up on the racing industry. An AQHA Professional Horseman and AQHA director from Oklahoma, G. R. is the chairman of the AQHA Racing Committee, a member of the AQHA Racing Council and president of the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association. A recipient of the Sam Thompson Memorial Award and member of Team Wrangler since its inception, G. R. has traveled to Mexico, where he tutored jockeys and served as an AQHA ambassador promoting American Quarter Horses. He is a former vice president of The Jockeys’ Guild, a board member of the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, a Quarter Horse ambassador for the Jockeys and Jeans charity, and is already in the Remington Park, Lone Star Park, Ruidoso Downs, Oklahoma Horse Racing and Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing halls of fame.

G.R. was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2023.