Cutting Horses

The other horses I really enjoy watching are those owned or showed by people I know or, as in the case of the Slate River Ranch horses, people known by people I know.  Here's Bob Squeaks in Abilene.

Bling Bling Bling is by Smooth as a Cat.  If you've read this blog before you know that our horse, Easters Pepper, is bred to Smooth as a Cat for a foal to be born this spring.  SaaC first babies are just now starting to show, so I'm trying to see as many of them as I can.  This was a really good run and definitely worth watching.

Here's another video of our horse, Easters Pepper, cutting in Delta last summer.  This was the last show at which she placed. There was another in Salina in September, but by that time she was getting fairly big and pregnant.  She did not end up winning any money that day and slipped out of first place for the year.  She did end up in second place though, winning us a pair of custom made chaps.  Woohoo!

I've been waiting for months to get this video up.  I kept expecting to pick it up from Jake, but just never did.  I finally ordered it from Action West Video.  It's my horse, Easters Pepper, being showed by Jake Ream in a Central Utah Cutting Horse Association show in Delta, Utah.  Jake does a great job here, gets some very good cattle, had a very good draw, and ended up marking a 76.  Nice job!

The other horses I've been trying to follow at this year's futurity are the babies of Smooth as a Cat.  We have bred our horse, Easters Pepper, to Smooth as a Cat so it's been exciting for me to see how his babies are doing in Fort Worth at the National Cutting Horse World Championship Futurity.  So, they've been doing pretty well.  Six of his offspring were entered, and all six made it through to the second go-round (meaning they were in the top 240 out of the 711 entries).  Of the six, two made it through to the semi-finals, which means they were in the top 70 of the 240 in the second go-round.  Below is the second round work of Star Above:

So, a couple of weeks ago I mentioned to my office neighbor down the hall, Steven R. Sumsion, that I am interested in cutting horses.  Steve is a somewhat distant relative in that we both descend from Daniel and Eleanor Sumsion who emigrated to Springville, UT from England in the late 1840s.  Anyway, he tells me that his daughter married into a family of cutting horse enthusiasts.  Her father-in-law is Glade Knight.  As it turns out, Glade's picture is on the cover of this month's Cutting Horse Chatter because of his recent success in the Super Stakes.  Glade and his family own the Slate River Ranch in Virginia and Texas.  Below is their horse that is doing very well after two go-rounds at the NCHA Futurity:

I know Jake is really high on this horse he's riding at the cutting horse futurity in Texas this week.  He had a tough go here.  Unfortunately, I didn't capture his first round ride earlier in the week.  It was much better (sorry Jake). The main reason I'm posting this here is in case Jake wants to take a look.

I mentioned below that I watched Merwin Grant's horse show.  Of course, part of my decreased productivity is not just watching the cutting horses show, it's also that I've been putting around with how to capture the video stream.  I found some software that works fairly well, then posted this run to You Tube.

Tags: cutting, futurity, horse, national, national cutting horse association, ncha, quarter horse

Have you ever noticed that there are some things that you think are blessings, but they turn out to be curses?  That may be the case for the National Cutting Horse Association World Championship Futurity.  It's awesome that it's available online via webcast.  Unfortunately, I've been watching way too much of it this week. 

It started out with just watching my cutting horse trainer, Jake Ream.  "I'll just watch the horses Jake is showing" I first told myself.  It quickly spread to all offspring of Smooth as a Cat.  Our mare, Easters Pepper, is in foal to Smooth as a Cat and I wanted to see how his offspring perform.  The short answer, by the way, is "very well".  Of course, pretty soon I was watching about four hours a day of the cutting.  Of course, I just had to see the horse that my good friend, Merwin Grant, had entered.  And what about all the Color Me Smart offspring (or descendants).  I couldn't miss them because our other cutting mare is by him.  My friend who offices down the hall has a son-in-law whose family owns the Slate River Ranch.  It would be rude not to...

Tags: cutting, futurity, horse, national, national cutting horse association, ncha, quarter horse