The 2019 NCHA Kit Kat Sugar Super Stakes kicked off its 24-day calendar on Thursday, the first day of Open Classic go-round competition, and the first day of a three-year title sponsorship thanks to the generosity of Barbara Allsup, Clovis, N.M., breeder with her late husband, Lonnie Allsup, of Kit Kat Sugar (Skeet), who stands at Brazos Valley Stallion Station.
Kit Kat Sugar, the 2012 NCHA Open Horse of the Year and earner of over $240,000, was reserve champion of the 2012 NCHA Super Stakes with his trainer, Pete Branch. Branch also trained and showed Kit Kat Sugar’s granddam, Little Badger Dulce LTE $657,276, winner of the NCHA Super Stakes, and six other major events in 1993, the same year that Little Badger Dulce was honored as NCHA’s very first Horse of the Year.
Thursday’s action got off to a fast pace, when 6-year-old Metallic Cat son Metallic Alex LTE $72,428, shown by Casey Green for Dave and Stephanie Sheen, San Angelo, Tex., scored 220 points early in the first set of cattle. CR WRS Royal Tee and Jesse Lennox rose to the occasion in the second set with 223 points, the top score of the day. Then Lennox claimed the third set with 222 points, the second-highest mark of the day, aboard Cinca Im Hot.
Both CR WRS Royal Tee LTE $98,878, by WR This Cats Smart, and Cinca Im Hot LTE $192,409, by Spots Hot, are owned by Rocking P Ranch, Fort Worth, Tex., as are 5-year-old Kit Cat Corn LTE $21,061, by Kit Kat Sugar, who scored 219.5 points with Chris Hanson; and the Metallic Cat-sired 5-year-olds Little Redd Corvette LTE $30,816 and Summer Shandy LTE $53,399, who earned 219 and 218 points, respectively, under Lennox.
Metallic Cat, shown by Beau Galyean as 2008 NCHA Futurity Open champion and 2009 NCHA Open Horse of the Year, is owned by Rocking P Ranch and is a top ten all-time leading sire, as well as the title sponsor of the NCHA Summer Spectacular.
Late in the sixth and last set on Thursday, Copperish and Lloyd Cox marked 220.5 points, the day’s third-highest score, for Jimmie Miller Smith, Geary, Okla. Six-year-old Copperish LTE $217,178, sired by Metallic Cat and trained and shown by Lloyd Cox, launched her 4-year-old career with wins in the Cattlemen’s Derby and the Bonanza, and also won both the 2018 and 2019 Abilene Spectacular 5/6 Classic titles.
CR WRS Royal Tee LTE $98,878, a 6-year-old gelding sired by WR This Cats Smart, was a finalist in last year’s Super Stakes Classic with Lennox, after the pair won the 2018 Abilene Spectacular Classic. Earlier this year, they earned money in the Open Gelding division of the Abilene Spectacular Classic.
The 2019 NCHA Kit Kat Sugar Super Stakes continues on Friday, March 29 with the second day of Open Classic first go-round competition.