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One day after his wife Jill (pictured) won the Non-Pro division of the Pacific Coast Cutting Horse Association Derby, Tom Long wrapped up the Open Derby Championship riding Purely Gorgeous, by Peptoboonsmal. “I knew this mare could make a run, and she did,” said Long. “It was a tough class.” The win was worth $13,336.00 for owner, Coy Sanders, Gardnerville, Nevada. Purely Gorgeous was a finalist earlier this year in the San Diego Winter Cutting.<\/p>\n
Jill Long’s championship win came aboard Cats Gotta Diamond with a 217-point performance. The four-year-old High Brow Cat son, bred by the Longs and trained by Tom, is out of Diamond J Starlight, the Grays Starlight daughter that Jill rode as non-pro champion of the 2001 NCHA Super Stakes Classic and non-pro reserve champion of the NCHA Classic\/Challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a little nervous,\u201d Jill admitted. \u201cThis is the first time I haven\u2019t warmed up my own horse before showing.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the preliminary competition, Jill suffered an injury that left her with five stitches and two black eyes. Right after competition, as she was removing Cats Gotta Diamond’s protective leg boots, he kicked out at another horse and Jill caught the blow between her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all turned out fine,” she emphasized. “He\u2019s just a really, really good horse. I\u2019ve waited a long time to show another really great horse like him.\u201d Jill was also 1999 NCHA Super Stakes Classic Non-Pro reserve champion on Starlight N Diamonds, a full brother to Diamond J Starlight.<\/p>\n
Open Classic Challenge \u201cThis mare works really good in this arena and she\u2019s better on tough cows, which these were,” noted Smith. \u201cIt was honestly one of the hardest runs I\u2019ve ever had in my career, because of the tough cattle.” The win put Fancy Frostina\u2019s lifetime earnings over the $100,000 mark.<\/p>\n Mr Lizzy, a son of Lizzys Gotta Player, ridden by Andrew Coates for owner Greg Reyes, Saratoga, CA, captured the reserve championship with 222 points.<\/p>\n The Non-Pro Classic Challenge Championship was won by Dana Heinrich, Fresno, California on Precious Lil Pearl with a 224-point finals performance.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a really good mare,” said Heinrich. “I didn\u2019t get to show her as a three-year-old, but when I brought her from Texas to California, in the middle of her four-year-old year, we really started to come together.\u201d The now five-year-old mare was raised by Heinrich, who named her after her late mother-in-law.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was really a special person and this is a very special horse to me,” said Heinrich, who placed third on Precious Lil Pearl in the non-pro division San Diego Classic and seventh in the South Point Classic. One day after his wife Jill (pictured) won the Non-Pro division of the Pacific Coast…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cutting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","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=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>In a 16-horse Open Classic Challenge finals, Tim Smith rode four horses that had earned four of the top five highest cumulative scores in the preliminaries. It was Frosty Frostina, ridden by Smith for Tommy Manion, Aubrey, TX, who held the high score of 444 points going into the final round, and the Smart Little Lena daughter upped the amps to win the title with 227 points in the finals.<\/p>\n
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