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Copaspepto and Wood I Never shared the spotlight as co-champions of the Ford NCHA Super Stakes on April 15, at Will Rogers Equestrian Center in Fort Worth, Texas. The win was worth $112,285 apiece for owners Marvine Ranch, Meeker, CO, and Wrigley Ranches, Weatherford, TX. It was the first time in 22 years that the National Cutting Horse Association has crowned co-champions in the Super Stakes; in 1985 – Doc Per, Sonitas Joy and Boons Sierra shared the title.<\/p>\n
Copaspepto, ridden by Tag Rice, set the bar with 222 points, as the last horse to work in the first set of the 20-horse finals. Wood I Never, with Clint Allen, matched Copaspepto’s score as the last horse to work in the last set.<\/p>\n
“My little horse has a lot of energy and wants to do his job real bad,” said Rice of Copaspepto, a gelded son of Peptoboonsmal. “He’s real intense on a cow and doesn’t make many mistakes at all. He’s one of the best ones I’ve ever had.”<\/p>\n
Rice, 32, rode Chiquita Pistol to capture NCHA’s Triple Crown, including the Super Stakes, in 2003. He earned $82,446 as a finalist (9th) on Copaspepto in the 2006 NCHA Futurity and has ridden the gelding this year to win the Abilene Spectacular and the Memphis Futurity, as well as the Super Stakes, for total earnings of nearly $275,000.<\/p>\n
He also won the Open Gelding Stakes at the Super Stakes on Rey Jay Cat, owned by Marvine Ranch. Rice, who lives in Crowley, TX, has lifetime earnings of $2.5 million.<\/p>\n
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“My mare tried as hard as she could go,” said Allen of Wood I Never, by Zack T Wood. “Everything went according to plan except that I did a terrible job of cutting my second cow. But it all worked out.”<\/p>\n
Allen, 32, a native New Zealander, who came to the United States 11 years ago to work under trainer Matt Gaines, won the 2002 NCHA Futurity Limited Open championship on Its Just About Me, but the Super Stakes win on Wood I Never gave him his first major championship.
\nWood I Never, a full sister to Wood Ya Wanna, with $230,000, had earned $26,000 as a finalist for Allen in four limited age events prior to the Super Stakes.<\/p>\n
Non-Pro champion Galyean also placed fourth with 215.5 points on Myles From Nowhere, by Smart Little Jerry. \u201cI felt frustrated and down a little bit after not getting a better score on (Myles From Nowhere),\u201d Galyean admitted. \u201cI guess they got me for flushing cows. But I knew I had another chance.<\/p>\n Spyder, who Galyean gelded one month ago, had earned just $2,125 prior to the Super Stakes. \u201cNo one knew the horse because I hadn\u2019t done anything on him,\u201d said Galyean. \u201cBut he\u2019s really come around at this show and is thinking about the right thing now.\u201d<\/p>\n The NCHA Super Stakes, the second jewel in cutting’s Triple Crown, awarded more than $3.15 million in prize money. The next NCHA Triple Crown event is the Summer Spectacular, which runs from July 10 through the 29 in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Copaspepto and Wood I Never shared the spotlight as co-champions of the Ford NCHA Super…<\/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-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cutting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","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=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>Beau Galyean scored 224 points on Spyder, by High Brow Cat, to win the Ford NCHA Non-Pro Super Stakes championship by seven points over Chad Bushaw on Mocha Cappuccino and Hope Mitchell on Millions Of Freckles, who tied for reserve with 217 points.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/features\/pix\/galyean%20beau%2020070415.jpg\")
\u201cWhen I walk down there, it\u2019s one place for me,\u201d said Galyean, who was reserve champion of the 2004 NCHA Futurity on Highlightcat. \u201cFive years from now they\u2019re not going to remember who won fourth or second place, so I\u2019d rather show to win.\u201d<\/p>\n