Smart, Cat, Dual, Rey, Pep, Play, Lena have held sway for nearly two decades as prominent surnames in the cutting world. But the word “Smooth,” which is turning up with frequency on recent show rosters, could change the cutting vocabulary.

LHR Smooth Jamie May, soon to be named 2010 NCHA Horse of the Year, is a prime example, as are Smooth Going Cat, Shes Twice As Smooth, and Smooth O Toole. They are all major 4-year-old money earners and their sire, Smooth As A Cat, is a top ranked sire of 3-year-old money earners of 2010.

Smooth As A Cat, NCHA Horse of the Year in 2005, was bred by Tommy Manion out of Shes Pretty Smooth, Manion’s 1994 NCHA Futurity Non-Pro and 1995 Augusta Futurity Non-Pro champion.

Shes Pretty Smooth has been a significant producer for Manion, with 19 NCHA performers that have earned nearly $900,000. Her “Smooth,” however, derives from a great family of Quarter Horse race champions rather than cutters.

Smooth Rosita, the second dam of Shes Pretty Smooth, was sired by Smooth Herman, a son of stakes winner and halter champion Jet Smooth, who was a full brother to legendary runner and sire Easy Jet.

Smooth Herman, an AQHA cutting and halter champion out of a King daughter, stood during the late 1970s and early 1980s at Randals Ranch in Montoya, New Mexico.

Randals advertised Smooth Herman as “an outcross on your Doc Bar mares,” even though Jet Smooth’s dam was Lena’s Bar, by Three Bars, and Doc Bar’s paternal grandsire was Three Bars. In fact, Walter Merrick, who bred Easy Jet and Jet Smooth, attributed much of Easy Jet’s greatness as a sire to the fact that he was linebred to Percentage, who was the sire of of Three Bars.

But Jet Smooth’s isn’t the only race blood in Shes Pretty Smooth’s pedigree. Her paternal granddam, Wheeling Princess, traces to Double Devil through her own dam, the Double Devil granddaughter Wheeling Lassie.

Double Devil also sired Go Effortlessly, dam of Quarter racing’s only Triple Crown champion, Special Effort, a leading race sire in his own right. And Double Devil’s dam, Bella St. Mary, was by Hijo the Bull (TB), owned by Art Pollard, who was also the owner of Doc Bar’s sire, Lightning Bar.

The story never ends….