Lucchese Cogdell was the youngest rider to ever qualify for a National Cutting Horse Association Triple Crown event, when she competed in the amateur finals of the 2006 NCHA Super Stakes. This year, at nine, the third grade student from Tulia, Texas, is still the youngest competitor, with winnings of nearly $10,000.

“My brothers told me to get my cows cut clean,” Lucchese said, following her ride aboard On The Shy Side in the amateur finals of the 2007 Amateur Super Stakes Classic, on April 6. Her brothers, Cooper, 17, and Blaze, 15, also began showing at an early age, following in the footsteps of their father Dick, who was a youth competitor.

Lucchese, who has been riding since she was three, is the granddaughter of the late Billy Cogdell, who owned 1978 NCHA Futurity champion Lynx Melody and bred and raised that mare’s daughter, Shania Cee, winner of the 1999 NCHA Futurity. The Cogdell family raises cattle and horses on an immense ranch in the Palo Dura Canyon region of the Texas Panhandle founded by Billy’s father, David Muncy Cogdell, the son of a Methodist minister.