{"id":352,"date":"2007-12-05T11:09:59","date_gmt":"2007-12-05T16:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/?p=352"},"modified":"2007-12-06T08:04:18","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T13:04:18","slug":"mike-rutherford-takes-ncha-futurity-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/?p=352","title":{"rendered":"Mike Rutherford takes NCHA Futurity lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

From NCHA’s Daily Chatter<\/a><\/em>
\nMike Rutherford took the lead in Non-Pro first go-round competition yesterday, with a 217-point performance on Little Bonnie Blue, as the next-to-last rider in the first set of cattle.<\/p>\n

“The cattle were tough and we were just fortunate to be able to get what we wanted cut clean,” said Rutherford, who was a Non-Pro Futurity finalist last year on Eligibility.<\/p>\n

Rutherford purchased Little Bonnie Blue, by Mecom Blue, through the Wichita Ranch Sale in Brenham, TX, when she was a yearling.
\n“I liked her hip and her low hocks,” said Rutherford, whose father owns and races Thoroughbred graded stakes winners. “I pick conformation first and then we go to pedigree.<\/p>\n

“With racehorses, they need to have good balance and decent conformation, as far as their legs,” he added. “If they’re crooked or (toe) out to the right, you want to stay away from them because you race around to the left. Bob Baffert (3-time Kentucky Derby winner) taught me that one.”<\/p>\n

Little Bonnie Blue was trained by Ryon Emerton, who has worked for Rutherford since last year and qualified the mare as a Limited Open finalist.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got six really good three-year-olds,” said Rutherford, who maintains a ranch in Buda, TX. “I usually come with a couple of non-pro horses, but Ryon has done such a great job, we brought three to Fort Worth.”<\/p>\n

Rutherford won the 2000 Non-Pro Super Stakes on Dual Flo. Most recently, he won the West Texas Non-Pro Futurity.<\/p>\n

Read more stories from the NCI Building Systems NCHA Futurity in today’s Daily Chatter<\/em><\/a>, edited by Sally Harrison<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From NCHA’s Daily Chatter Mike Rutherford took the lead in Non-Pro first go-round competition yesterday,…<\/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-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cutting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","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=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}