Brad Mitchell pitched a double yesterday, when he won both the 3-year-old open finals and the 5 & 6-year open finals of the Music City Cutting Horse Futurity in Nashville.
Mitchell, who works for Painted Springs Farm in Thompson Station, Tennessee, scored 216 for the Futurity win on the Little Trona daughter Teletrona, bred and owned by Painted Springs Farm. He marked 222 points on Hickory Lena Star, a High Brow Hickory son that he owns in partnership with Barbara Brooks, owner with her husband Kix Brooks (of country music’s Brooks and Dunn), of Painted Springs Farm.
Nitrous Cutter, the Nitro Dual Doc daughter owned by Mark Neville that Dirk Blakesley rode to win the State of Missouri Futurity last week, was reserve champion of the Music City Futurity. Woody Be Tuff, by Nitas Wood, took reserve in the Classic with 221.5 points under Austin Shepard for Jill Peacock.
Shepard scored a hat trick in the first go-round of the Classic with a 221-point win on KD Shorty, owned by Elizabeth Queen, and a pair of 220s on Woody Be Tuff and Widows Intentions, owned by Jim Langdale. He won the second go-round with 220 on Show Biz Ben, owned by Becky Elliott, and ranked first and second with combined go-round scores of 436.5 on Show Biz Ben, and 435.5 on Woody Be Tuff.
Altogether, Shepard qualified five out of the 21 Classic finalists and earned $23,112.
Wayne Czisny was the only rider to qualify two mounts for the Futurity finals, where he split third and fourth on Boonlight N Bay, and fifth and sixth on Boon Biscuit, both bred and owned by Polo Ranch, Marietta, Oklahoma Czisny’s mounts earned more than $17,000.
Brad Mitchell is back in the saddle on Thursday, September 14 riding Smart You Bet and Nurse Nelle in the 4-year-old finals.