This Cats Got Style lived up to her name with a 229-point win worth $75,000, on Friday, December 4, in the 2015 Western Bloodstock NCHA Winter Showdown during the NCHA World Championship & Futurity Festival. Lil Rattler and rider Wesley Galyean claimed second and $50,000 with 222 points for SMF Cutting Horses, Aspen, Colo., and Junie Wood and John Mitchell took third and $22,000 for Slate River Ranch, Weatherford, Tex.
“It was the biggest run I’ve ever had on her and it was a good place to have it,” said Dustin Gonnet, 33, who showed 6-year-old This Cats Got Style for Ronald Patton, Nanton, Alberta, Canada. “It’s kind of a dream come true because this is the first time I’ve been able to show her in Texas and everybody wants to win in this pen. That’s what it’s all about.
“These are the best horses in the world, so when we made it through the short round, I was pretty pumped. There was not one that did not deserve to be there.”
The 15-horse field, ranging in age from 10 to four years, was possibly the richest that has ever competed in Will Rogers Coliseum, with cumulative earnings of $2,947,761 and average earnings of $196,517.
Six-year-old Lil Rattler LTE $278,273 drew first to cut in the Finals, followed by 6-year-old Donas Suen Boon LTE $283,473 with Kobie Wood, who scored 219 points for fifth place and $19,000. Five-year-old Little Dirty Deeds LTE $86,403, who followed 5-year-old Junie Wood LTE $437,936, as the next-to-last horse to cut, scored 219.5 points for fourth place and $21,000 under Morgan Cromer for Texas Holy Cow Performance Horses.
This Cats Got Style, by High Brow Cat out of Moms Stylish Pepto, was bred by Rhodes River Ranch, Arlington, Wash., and purchased by Patton as a 2-year-old started by Wayne Robinson.
“When we drove into Wayne’s yard and saw a mare tied to the wall, I thought, man, I hope that’s the horse we came to look at,” said Gonnet, who has had This Cats Got Style since then. “We wanted something well bred and big and strong like she is because we show in the Northwest States and Canada and we wanted a horse that could handle all types of cattle.
“She’s been the best horse I’ve ever gotten to train and show,” Gonnet added. “She’s so physical and has so much eye appeal. When those cows come to her, she’ll just crawl on her belly and look real pretty.”
This Cats Got Style and Gonnet won the 2012 Canadian Supreme Futurity and the 2014 Canadian Supreme 5/6 Classic, and took reserve in the 2014 Calgary NCHA World Series. This past year they won the $15,000 Novice championship at the NCHA Western Nationals.
Including her Winter Showdown winnings, This Cats Got Style has NCHA lifetime earnings of $175,868.
Gonnet, who owns and operates a training facility in Nanton, an hour south of Calgary, grew up on a PFRA community pasture (Canadian land management service created in the 1930s for the Prairie provinces) near Outlook Saskatchewan, where they cared for 1200 mother cows.
“I grew up cowboying and started riding cutting horses about 15 years ago,” said Gonnet. “Now where we live there is a lot of day work, and if we can, we work our horses in the morning and go cowboying in the afternoon.”
The Western Bloodstock NCHA Showdown Series was conceived by Jeremy Barwick, owner with his wife, Canadace, of Western Bloodstock Ltd., which produces the NCHA Triple Crown Sales in Fort Worth, along with select cutting horse production sales and dispersal sales. In addition to the NCHA Super Stakes, NCHA Summer Spectacular, and NCHA Futurity Sales in 2015, Western Bloodstock Ltd. also produced Alice Walton’s Rocking W Ranch Dispersal, in Millsap, Tex., and the Center Ranch Production Sale, in Centerville, Tex.
For information on 2016 NCHA/Western Bloodstock Showdown events and upcoming Western Bloodstock sales see westernbloodstock.com.