If Chelsea Tatum and Bobs Smart Rey looked like champions on Thursday as they rode to the herd, it was because they were. Tatum and the Dual Rey mare had won last year’s NCHA Super Stakes Classic Non-Pro Limited with 225 points. They scored 223.5 points on Thursday to claim the 2019 title and become the only horse and rider team to win back-to-back Super Stakes Classic Non-Pro Limited championships in the history of the event.
John Johnson, Ardmore, Okla., scored 221 points in the 17-horse finals on Miss Masterson LTE $58,780, by Cat T Masterson, for the reserve championship, and Gentry Gonsalves, Millsap, Tex., placed third with 218 points riding Georgia Bootlegger LTE $28,976, by Dual Smart Rey.
With the exception of Cass Tatum, who showed Bobs Smart Rey as an Open Limited finalist in the 2017 PCCHA Futurity and the NCHA Super Stakes, and Adan Banuelos, who showed her in the 2017 Idaho Derby, Chelsea Tatum has been the mare’s only rider. Together the pair has earned $114,456, including Thursday’s winner’s check of $6,914. Tatum, who is from Overbrook, Okla., is the NCHA earner of $124,185. Bobs Smart Rey has earnings of $121,766.
John Johnson and Miss Masterson placed seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 2017 NCHA Futurity Non-Pro Limited and the 2018 NCHA Super Stakes Non-Pro Limited. Miss Masterson was also a 2018 Open finalist in six major events under James Payne.
Johnson, the NCHA earner of $108,010, was a 2016 NCHA Super Stakes Non-Pro finalist and Non-Pro Limited finalist with Ripping Ichi, by Cat Ichi, the horse he showed as a 2015 NCHA Futurity Non-Pro Limited finalist. Earlier this year, Johnson took second-place in the 2019 Arbuckle Mountain 4-Year-Old Non-Pro Limited with Skeet Skat Cat, by Kit Kat Sugar.
Gentry Gonsalves, a Senior Youth competitor and NCHA earner of $31,417, showed Georgia Bootlegger to placed third in the 2018 NCHA Super Stakes Classic Non-Pro Limited, and as reserve champion of the NCHA Classic Challenge Non-Pro Limited. Earlier this year, Gentry and her 6-year-old gelding placed fifth in the Arbuckle Mountain Non-Pro finals and claimed the reserve championship of that event’s Non-Pro Limited.