Reys Desire, winner of last year’s XTO Energy NCHA Super Stakes, with a payout of $112,599, topped Tuesday’s Super Stakes Classic Open competition with 221 points, under Lee Francois.
Third Cutting, winner of the 2009 Super Stakes and the 2010 Super Stakes Classic, posted 220.5 points, the second-highest score of the day, with Boyd Rice.
“She’s one of those that anybody could get along with,” said Francois of 5-year-old Reys Desire, owned by her breeder, H.B. “Woody” Bartlett. “She just tries to help you so much. It is all her.”
Reys Desire, sired by Dual Rey, is from the family of NCHA World Champions Peppy’s Desire and Genuine Desire, as well as Desires Little Rex, $287,519; Desire Some Freckles, $188,990; and a stout female lineage of outstanding money earners and producers.
“Her mother (Playguns Desire) was Woody Bartlett’s first NCHA Futurity finalist and his first aged event champion,” said Francois.
“We call her ‘Radar’ because she has long ears,” he added. “You don’t have to try very hard to make her work. You just put her on auto pilot.”
Reys Desire has official NCHA earnings of $239,041.
Third Cutting, closing in on the $500,000 benchmark in lifetime NCHA earnings (currently he has $489,125), gave his hallmark gritty performance under Boyd Rice, as the first to work in the fourth set.
“You’re pretty excited when you get down there on him,” said Rice, who won the 2010 Super Stakes Classic with 226 points, and the 2010 NCHA Classic Challenge with 230 points.
“He’s just real smart and strong. I can ask him for his life, right there in the finals, and he’ll give it to me every time.”
Bred by Polo Ranch and sired by Boonlight Dancer, Third Cutting is owned by Carl and Shawnea Smith, who purchased him at three (James Payne had started him for Polo Ranch) on the advice of Rice. His first show was the 2008 NCHA Futurity, where he placed eighth. Since then, he and Rice have won every other major NCHA event held in Fort Worth’s Will Rogers Coliseum.
Shepard double 219
Austin Shepard, winner of the 2008 NCHA Super Stakes aboard High Brow CD, and most recently NCHA Eastern Nationals Open champion on Playin At The Mall, earned 219 points on two of the top 17 horses, from 124, that advanced to today’s second go-round, including Bet Hesa Cat, owned by the Bet Hesa Cat Syndicate.
“We’ve always had a lot of luck at other places, but it sure would be nice to get him shown to the finals here,” said Shepard of the 5-year-old High Brow Cat son, who was reserve champion of this year’s Tunica Classic and reserve at the 2010 Breeders Invitational.
“I’ve been showing him in the open on weekends and he’s matured a lot because of it,” Shepard added. “He goes down there and works what I put in front of him. It doesn’t have to be a perfect situation. Whatever we have to do, he’s there for me.”
Bet Hesa Cat is currently leading the NCHA World Championship standings; his dam, Bet Yer Blue Boons, was 2000 NCHA World Champion.
“I’ve been showing him a lot and he’s been breeding eight or nine mares every week,” said Shepard. “He’s collected three times a week (at the Four Sixes Ranch, where he is standing) and it doesn’t seem to bother him.
Shepard also qualified three other horses, including Spooked By A Cat, by Cat Ichi, with 219 points.