Becky Clark of Weatherford, Texas, showed Widows Peek, by Widows Freckles, for the first time a week before the first round of the XTO Energy NCHA Super Stakes Classic qualifying rounds got underway. On Tuesday night, she rode last to the herd in the 28-horse finals and took the championship with a 224.5-point run.
Allie Roger marked 223 in the first set on Cattahoochie, by High Brow Cat, for the reserve championship. Bob Kingsley, riding homebred Little Pepto Cat, by High Brow Cat, was the Senior champion with a 217.5.
Because Widows Freckles qualifies for the McDavid Double Down Bonus, which matches the earnings of Non-Pro, Limited Non-Pro and Amateur champions at NCHA Triple Crown shows, Clark took home a total of $36,000 for her win.
Bred by Double Dove Ranch, Widows Peek is out of Peek A Boon, the dam of $200,000 winner Play Peek A Boon.
David and Stacie McDavid, who both qualified for the Non-Pro finals themselves, had purchased Widows Peek for $32,000 as a yearling at the 2007 Western Bloodstock NCHA Futurity Sales. They later sold him to Grant Setnicka, who put about $24,000 in earnings on the gelding in 2010. Setnicka eventually gave the horse to Jason and Becky Clark around the beginning of 2012. They put him on the Aquatred at the McDavids’ Tin Top Stallion Station and Rehabilitation Center and got him ready to show just before the Super Stakes.
“(Widows Peek) can do it all,” said Clark, whose 224.5 was a career high. “He runs and stops and he can do it in the middle, too. He looks pretty on a cow. He’s real low and stops real level.
“Allie had a really, really good run. I wasn’t sure it was going to beat that, I couldn’t believe it. Being last, I was just trying to go in there and have a good run and get a good check.”
Reserve champion Allie Roger was riding Cattahoochie, which her husband, Neil, bought for her after selling Duals For Amanda, the horse that took her to her first NCHA Futurity Non-Pro finals last December.
“We bought her from (breeder) Carol Rains in December,” Roger said. “We always knew she was a good mare, but until you get in the show ring you don’t know what they’re going to do.”
Neil Roger also made the Open finals on Cattahoochie.
Non-Pro Senior champion Bob Kingsley bred Little Pepto Cat by High Brow Cat out of his NCHA Horse of the Year Little Pepto Gal.
He rode last in the first set of cattle to mark 217.5 for fourth place overall.
Following Matt Gaines’ reserve championship on the 6-year-old in the Open finals on Saturday, Little Pepto Cat has earned nearly $75,000 at this year’s Super Stakes Classic, for a career total of nearly $200,000.