(The following is a repost from the Quarter Horse News Magazine — August 2018 Issue. Posted with permission by Quarter Horse News Magazine and Amber Hodge — check them out at quarterhorsenews.com)

By Amber Hodge

Read The Original Article Here (PDF)

This cutting enthusiast, businessman and athlete thrives on competition as he strives to be the best in everything he does.

Determination, hard work, and “no quit” are the three main factors in Plano, Texas, native Reagan Lancaster’s daily life. Whether he’s wearing a suit and tie or jeans and a cowboy hat, he remains steadfast in his drive to succeed in every aspect of his life — be it software companies, bodybuilding competitions, or cutting events. And while wearing three hats might seem daunting, Lancaster tackles his busy schedule with as much focus as he does in everything else.

“Whether it’s horses, business or working out, I try to tell people I really don’t know the secret to balance, but I try to prioritize my life based on what’s going on,” he said.

Raised on a steady diet of schoolwork, horses and sports, Lancaster graduated high school and attended the University of North Texas Business School, where he received a degree in computer information systems. From there, he went to work for many successful companies, such as the renowned Wang Laboratories, Oracle and i2 Technologies.

Through a full-circle approach to life that includes discipline and hard work, Reagan Lancaster has built himself an empire.

“Among his accomplishments include being named the youngest top salesperson of multiple companies worldwide, chief revenue officer, president and top vice president of sales and awarded CEO, as well as regularly amassing 100 percent company growth and consistently turning million-dollar companies into billion-dollar companies without taking any outside venture money. He was also named Motivator of the Year for three consecutive years by Sales and Marketing Magazine, and received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1999.” And though he has acquired seemingly insurmountable success, it did not come without obstacles.

During college, he worked up to three jobs to pay for school and avoid student loans, doing everything from working on freight docks to valet parking. He explained that his work ethic and drive came from watching and learning about life on the ranch while growing up.

“I grew up around ‘you work from sun up to sun down,’” he said. “That’s just the lifestyle. When I applied that to the business world, I just outworked everybody.

“I can remember being young and going out and doing my first presentations, and I couldn’t get anyone to help me,” he continued. “Back in those days, no one wanted to see you be successful, so I had to learn the software myself and go out and present it to people.”

Once again, Lancaster’s drive to succeed helped push him further up the ladder in the business world. He continued his professional efforts in growing companies, building his own companies, helping others and traveling the world as a motivator to speak about his journey to success. However, once he realized that his business travels were taking much of his time away from his family, he began to scale his all-out efforts back.

“I just decided that it was more important to be with my family,” he explained. “What was going to make me happy was not the money or being on planes anymore, but really just being around my family and doing the things I like to do. I started doing the things that I really enjoyed in life and putting my family first, and business a little further back on my priority list.”

One of the more prominent aspects Lancaster reincorporated into his life was horses. Having grown up spending much of his time horseback

on his grandfather’s ranch, he clung to his roots and took comfort once again in being back in the saddle.

Riding cutting horses is Lancaster’s escape from his high-pressure life. With nearly $500,000 in lifetime earnings, he shows the same determination and focus in the horse world that he does with his other hobbies.

“It just brings back those special moments in my life,” he said. “In business, when I’m under a massive amount of stress and there are a lot of things on the line — whatever the business issue is — when I get on a horse, I forget about everything else. It’s an inner peace.”

Lancaster’s first love of horses lay in roping, but after he was given the opportunity to ride a cutting horse, he switched his focus from rodeo to the show pen, though he still maintains a roping area at his Lancaster Ranch.

After posting his first check to Equi-Stat in 2004, Lancaster has steadily added money to his performance record each year. Having rode to a first-year total of $665, he has since amassed nearly a half-million in Amateur and Non-Pro earnings totaling $474,095 as of this March, according to Equi-Stat.

Many horses have played a role in Lancaster’s success in the cutting pen, one of which includes Desire A Little Pepto (Sweet Little Pepto x Playguns Desire x Playgun). Both Lancaster and his longtime trainer Lee Francois saw much success on the gelding, who has more than $217,300 in earnings, according to Equi-Stat.

More recently, Lancaster and Francois have garnered sizeable paychecks with RL Bobby Boucher (Boon San x Stylish Baby Doll x SR Instant Choice) at the Bonanza Cutting, Arbuckle Mountain Futurity, and the National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) Super Stakes this year already, which brought the horse’s total earnings to more than $40,785 in the span of two months, according to Equi-Stat.

Another passion that Lancaster says complements his equine lifestyle is bodybuilding, which he feels is necessary to being able to keep up with the lifetime demands that working with horses has on a body.

“I center my life around horses and the ranch, but also bodybuilding,” he said. “I spent so much time working out in the gym for sports and athletics, and was always in the gym working out and exercising. The same work ethic I have in business and training for bodybuilding translates to horses so much because we take care of horses just like a bodybuilder does. We want our horses on the best supplements, to have the best feed and to have the right amount of exercise; it’s the same with our bodies.”

Lancaster, trains with professional bodybuilder Steve Kuclo, and has competed in numerous bodybuilding events in the last several years, and was recently given an award in recognition and support of the International Federation for Bodybuilding and the National Physique Committee (IFBB/NPC) at the Europa Games in Dallas this past June. With a rigorous training and diet schedule, Lancaster said that he enjoys the competitiveness of simply following through with his strict routine.

“Being in the horse business, you’ve got to pack your food with you,” he said. “I never go more than three hours without eating. Where my bridles hang, my food hangs right there beside them.”

And while Lancaster has more than enough on his plate to keep him busy, he makes time to enjoy a very prominent hobby: collecting athletic shoes. With a focus on limited and rare editions, Lancaster has purchased over four hundred pairs of athletic shoes, and he recently attended Sneaker Con in Dallas, which was a premier event for shoe enthusiasts.

“I’m building a shoe room in my house right now,” he admitted with a laugh. “My goal is to wear a different pair of shoes every day. The people in the horse business have no idea what I’m doing!”

With a hectic schedule, Lancaster said that he gets by with strict prioritization, and still maintains time to spend with his family.

“You have to do the very best you can,” he said. “When you have time with your family, don’t waste it; don’t spend your time doing wasteful things. Making your time count is how you beat the balance issue. I’m not excited or happy or fulfilled unless I have more things going than I can handle. I’m so used to handling that pressure and handling those things, and that’s what I like.”

Lancaster said that he is excited about his upcoming schedule for the remainder of the year, which will include several limited age events, supporting bodybuilding events with Kuclo, and spending time with his family. And, when it comes to dealing with his rigorous schedule, Lancaster said that he will always find peace with his horses, and encourages others to do the same, even going so far as to hold an annual gathering at his ranch, where he spends much of his time working with young kids and showing them how to ride.

“It’s my treasure, my heaven, and if I can share that with other people, it’s just awesome,” he said. “I love trying to get people hooked on horses.”

Learn more about Reagan at:

– http://reaganlancaster.net
– http://lancasterranch.net
– http://intellect.software

Or follow him on social media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lancasterreagan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reagan.lancaster
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reagan_lancaster

Medium Article – https://medium.com/@reaganllancaster/reagan-lancaster-quarter-horse-news-feature-story-by-amber-hodge-repost-7a600a992016