First bunch to last, yesterday was a great day to watch the action in Will Rogers Coliseum.

Tassa Cat, ridden by Beau Galyean, marked 217 points as the first to show in the first herd, where lifetime earnings averaged $118,153 for the 15 entries.

Dont Look Twice and Phil Rapp worked third in the same bunch to the tune of 220 points.

Five more sets of solid action led to the seventh and final set where Playin at the Mall and Austin Shepard nailed the day with 222 points. Lee Francois added a final emphasis with back-to-back runs of 221 points and 217.5 on MC Chiquita Catolena and War Bird Dog. This Kats King and Sean Flynn closed the day with 217.5.

“The main thing is that he’s good every time,” said Shepard of Playin At The Mall, the 6-year-old gelding that he purchased for Buster Quirk from James Hooper earlier this year.

Shepard won the Augusta Futurity 5/6-Year-Old championship on the Playdox son; Quirk then showed him as champion of the Super Stakes Amateur Classic, where Shepard also gained the Open finals.

“He immediately sinks into the ground,” said Shepard of Playin At The Mall, who is a big horse horse in comparison to the average cutter. “With his size, even though he’s athletic, if he’d been taught the wrong way to turn around, it would have really been hard for him (to excel).

“He would have cut no matter who trained him, but I think that Roger Wagner was able to give him his full potential because of the way that he trained him.
“Roger kept everything so perfect with the way the horse moved, that’s what made him the horse that he is.”

Wagner trained Playin At The Mall for his breeder, Jim Vangilder, who rode the horse as reserve champion of the 2008 NCHA Non-Pro Derby.
Playin At The Mall has career earnings of over $230,000.

Lee Francois realized when he saw the first go-round draw two weeks ago that he was going to have to “re-boot” before he even stepped out of MC Chiquita Catolena’s saddle to put his foot into the stirrup for a return trip on War Bird Dog.

“I focused on trying to keep my composure after the first horse so I could go do my job on the second one,” Francois said.
“They are totally different horses. The first one (MC Chiquita Catolena) I have to kick on and the second one, I can hardly touch him at all.

“The first horse takes a tougher cow and the other horse, I need to cut a slow cow so he can lay down and be showy. I was lucky to get that done on both of them.”
Francois showed 6-year-old MC Chiquita Catolena, by High Brow Cat, for Ron Bailey as a finalist in the 2010 Breeders Invitational and the Non-Pro. He showed 5-year-old War Bird Dog, by Dual Rey and owned by Wendell Reeder, as a limited age event finalist in 2009, as well.

Already this year, 5-year-old Dont Look Twice, owned by Louis and Corliss Baldwin of Fort Worth, has won three major open championships, claimed a major reserve title, placed third in another, and has earned over $80,000. She has NCHA lifetime earnings $373,657.

“The mare was dead on,” said Rapp of Dont Look Twice’s 220-point performance yesterday. “She did what she usually does and that’s perform well. They don’t come around like her very often.”

While horses like Dont Look Twice don’t come around very often, they do more frequently for Phil and his wife Mary Ann, the #1-ranked all-time owners of money earners ($7.4 million) and #8-ranked breeders ($3.9 million).

Dont Look Twice, sired by High Brow Cat, is fourth generation Rapp-owned and bred, including granddam Tap Olena, earner of over $501,000.
Docs Alota Pepto won the 2010 Breeders Invitational Amateur for Kristen York, after placing third for her in the Arbuckle Mountain amateur division.
The stallion was also spot on for trainer Jaime Snider in the NCHA Super Stakes Classic, where he finished eighth in the finals, and as a finalist in the Abilene Spectacular.

“It depends on what you cut, but you can almost depend on him doing the same thing every time,” said Snider, who showed the Sweet Lil Pepto son as champion of the 2008 Wyoming Futurity.

“He’s probably the most consistent horse that I’ve ever shown. I feel comfortable when I go down there, as long as I do my job, he’ll do his.”