Peepaboo, ridden by Paul Hansma, bounced back from a tough-luck run in the first round to win the second go-round of the NCHA Open World Finals with 231 points, in Fort Worth’s Watt Arena on Sunday night, November 29.
Crey Zee, ridden by Tatum Rice, was second with a 225 points, while Blues Hot and Todd Bimat scored 222.5 for third. The remaining rounds of the Open and Non-Pro World Finals will be decided on Thursday and Saturday.
Bred and owned by Alexa Stent of Aledo, Tex., who is also showing Bowmerang in the Non-Pro World Finals, Peepaboo is a 7-year-old mare by Docs Stylish Oak out of Little Bow Peepto LTE $134,559.
Stent rode Little Bow Peepto to third place in the 2011 Non-Pro NCHA Classic Challenge, and Eddie Flynn showed her to multiple major limited age event finals.
Little Bow Peepto, who is also the dam of another 2020 NCHA World Finals contender, Kreepin Cat, is out of million-dollar producer Bowmans Little Jewel, the dam of Stent’s Non-Pro mount, Bowmerang.
Peepaboo will sail past the $100,000 mark with Sunday’s win. Paul Hansma, the NCHA Hall of Fame earner of $6,225,059, showed 1994 NCHA Open Horse of the Year Hicapoo and 1996 NCHA Futurity champion Playboy McCrae, but Peepaboo, currently ranked #4 in the World, with a shot at the top, could give him his highest position ever in the year-end standings.
Crey Zee, the 2018 NCHA Futurity champion and 2019 Horse of the Year, is a mare bred and owned by Kevin and Sydney Knight of Weatherford, Tex. She is by Dual Rey out of Eazee E, a daughter of $1.3 million producer Zee Dualy.
With Hall of Fame Rider Tatum Rice, an earner of $2,645,277, on board, she is sitting in third place in the tightly packed field for the World Championship.
In fact, this is probably the first time that all 15 horses in the Open World Finals have had a mathematical chance to win the World Championship mid-way through the show.