Tarin Rice, who turned 18 last month, became the youngest cutting horse rider in history to earn $150,000 in one event, when he won the MillionHeir Non-Pro Derby in Las Vegas, on Saturday, March 3. Rice’s 221-point score aboard MH Willing To Cut, as the ninth to work in the 10-horse finals, surpassed reserve champion Nina Lundgren on San Tules Star by 5 1/2 points.

Rice, who won the 2003 NCHA Senior Youth Scholarship Cutting on Montanas Musical Sox and was 2005 NCHA Senior Youth reserve champion, has seen his NCHA lifetime earnings jump from $34,500 to more than $200,000 in just two months thanks to MH Willing To Cut.

“I would have to say that his smartness is probably the best thing about him,” said Rice of his 4-year-old gelded son of Peppys Lil Wil, trained by Zack Henning. Rice purchased MH Willing To Cut last December from Dustin Adams, whose father Wes Adams, owner of Western States Ranches, founded the MillionHeir program.

“He’s real well trained and real cowy, and he’s got a pretty good stop,” noted Rice, who placed eighth in the Abilene Spectacular Non-Pro Derby in January, the first time he showed the gelding; the MillionHeir Derby was his second time to show him.

A fourth generation horseman, Rice’s cutting lineage is solid “black type.” His father, Boyd Rice, was 2005 NCHA Open World Champion on Bobs Hickory Rio and is the earner of $1.6 million; his brother Tatum has earned more than $100,000; and his grandfather, Sonny Rice, is a former NCHA Open World Champion. His great-uncle, Ronnie Rice, ranks among NCHA’s Top Ten all-time leading money earners with more than $3.7 million, and his second cousin, Tag Rice, is one of only three riders to have won the NCHA Futurity, Super Stakes and Derby on one horse (Chiquita Pistol 2002-2003) and has earnings of over $2.5 million.

At the moment, MH Willing To Cut is Tarin’s only limited age event horse. But Tarin plans to shop around for an NCHA Futurity mount and has the budget, not to mention the pedigree, to be a threat this December, when the Futurity comes to Fort Worth.