{"id":17567,"date":"2020-04-03T18:30:59","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T23:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/?p=17567"},"modified":"2020-04-03T18:30:59","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T23:30:59","slug":"triple-crown-dateline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/?p=17567","title":{"rendered":"Triple Crown dateline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The creation of the NCHA Super Stakes in 1981 set up a\nperfect Triple Crown relationship for the three major Fort Worth events \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Futurity,\nthe Super Stakes, and the Derby. In 1983, Smart Little Lena introduced the world\nto a new era in cutting horse competition, when he made a winning sweep of the\n1982 NCHA Futurity, as well as of the 1983 NCHA Super Stakes and NCHA Derby,\nand became cutting\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first Triple Crown champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But before revisiting the 1983 Super Stakes, a short\nhistorical overview of the NCHA Derby is in order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to 1970, the NCHA Futurity, limited to three-year-olds,\nwas the only official show defined by age restrictions. As Futurity nominations\ngrew, from 49 in 1962, to 539 in 1969, and purses increased four-fold, the\ndemand for cutting-bred and trained show horses increased, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1969, Cee Bars Joan earned $15,724 for her NCHA Futurity win.\nAs a gauge to the impact back then of one event with a first prize of over\n$15,000, consider that in 1970, the average American\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual salary was $7,564.\nThe logical next step then, for NCHA organizers, was to create another event\nsimilar to the NCHA Futurity, but restricted to four-year-olds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Shorty Freeman won the first NCHA Derby, riding Doc’s Kitty.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In 1970, eleven years before the first Super Stakes, the\nNCHA Maturity was inaugurated at Tingley Coliseum in Albuqerque, N.M. Limited\nto four-year-olds, and with procedures and rules modeled after those of the NCHA\nFuturity, the premier Maturity offered a gross purse of $18,237, with 45 entrees\nfrom 86 original nominees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three judges officiated at the first NCHA Maturity \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Jim Reno,\nLeroy Ashcraft and Willard Davis. Competition consisted of two go-rounds, the\nsemi-final, and the finals. Before the Futurity, final placing in events was calculated\nfrom cumulative totals, so it was a departure for the Futurity and Maturity to\npay the big money on the last run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Futurity had initiated the first non-pro\ndivision in 1969, the Maturity did not include non-pro competition until 1975,\nwhen the event was moved to the Heart of Texas Arena in Waco, Tex. and renamed\nthe NCHA Derby. Ninety-two entries competed for a purse of $25,093 in that year,\nwith 18 non-pro entries competing for $1,800 within the go-rounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diagnostic Data Inc., the makers of Drive feed supplement,\ncame on board in 1977, as the first NCHA Derby sponsor and added $10,000 to a total\npurse that had grown $47,833. That year also marked the initiation of NCHA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\nnew five-judge system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NCHA Derby was held in Waco until 1981, when it was\nmoved to Fort Worth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, featuring 211 entries and\na purse of $167,725. With the exception of 1987, when it was held at the Bell\nCounty Expo Center in Belton, Tex., while Will Rogers Memorial Equestrian\nCenter was under construction, the NCHA Derby has remained a Fort Worth,\nfixture, along with the Futurity and the Super Stakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1988, NCHA added separate 5-year-old and six-year-old \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Classic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\nand \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Challenge\u00e2\u20ac\u009d divisions to the Derby agenda, incorporating all three age\ndivisions into the Summer Spectacular. In 1995, the Classic and Challenge\ndivisions were combined into one division called the Classic Challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The creation of the NCHA Super Stakes in 1981 set up a perfect Triple Crown…<\/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-17567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cutting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17567","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=17567"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17572,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17567\/revisions\/17572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}