{"id":16072,"date":"2019-03-27T12:55:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T17:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/?p=16072"},"modified":"2019-03-27T14:32:42","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T19:32:42","slug":"sonitalena-1987-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/?p=16072","title":{"rendered":"Sonitalena, 1987-2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"379\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/sonitalena.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16074\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/sonitalena.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/sonitalena-300x207.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><figcaption>Willie Richardson on Sonitalena. Don Shugart photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sonitalena, the Open World Champion Cutting Horse of 1996, owned and  shown by Willie Richardson, died on March 23 at the age of 32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Richardson had won the 1985 NCHA Super Stakes, in a three-way tie with Doc Per and Boons Sierra, riding Sonitas Joy for Herman Bennett Ranch. After Bennett sold  Sonitas Joy to John Gerhardt, Richardson continued to ride the Sonita&#8217;s Last daughter, and eventually convinced Gerhardt to breed  her to Doc O&#8217;Lena. Sonitalena was the result of that breeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Phil Hanson started Sonitalena, before Gerhardt sent the bay stallion to Richardson, who was interested in buying him. &#8220;It&#8217;s pretty tough to talk a banker into loaning you money to buy a cutting horse,&#8221; Richard said. &#8220;It surprised me that they did. But by that time he was three and I had been riding him and really liked him. His mother was a great mare, and I thought Doc O&#8217;Lena was about the greatest stallion that ever lived. So I just knew this colt had to be a special horse.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Richardson was a Memphis Futurity finalist with 4-year-old  Sonitalena and the horse just missed qualifying for the World Finals that season. He placed fourth in the World the following year, while also adding to his aged-event credentials, despite the fact that Richardson was sidelined with a broken leg for several months, early in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Richardson was showing Sonitalena, following a good run, he would offer the stallion a packet of sugar. &#8220;He knows when he&#8217;s had a good run, because when I get off, he&#8217;ll start looking around for that sugar,&#8221; Richardson noted. &#8220;But if he&#8217;s had a bad run, he doesn&#8217;t even bother looking.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1996, Sonitalena earned $91,628 to win the World Championship. He retired with career earnings of $188,876 and was inducted into the NCHA Hall of Fame in 1996. In addition to his own NCHA earnings, Sonitalena sired 87 earners of $850,215.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sonitalena, the Open World Champion Cutting Horse of 1996, owned and shown by Willie Richardson,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cutting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16072"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16080,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072\/revisions\/16080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}