{"id":9652,"date":"2012-12-02T10:11:52","date_gmt":"2012-12-02T15:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/?p=9652"},"modified":"2012-12-02T10:31:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-02T15:31:14","slug":"nothing-to-lose-steve-earl-tops-after-round-2-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/?p=9652","title":{"rendered":"Nothing To Lose, Steve Earl tops after Round 2, Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Steve<\/a>
Jim Short, Bill Riddle and Kelly Good with Saturday's high-scoring horse, Steve Earl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>Steve Earl and Bill Riddle share a lot of history, as do Riddle and the National Cutting Horse Association.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Riddle showed homebred and home-trained Steve Earl, owned by Jim Short, Ful\u00c2\u00adshear, Tex., to score 219 points and top the first day of the second round of NCHA Futurity Open competition.<\/p>\n

“Truthfully, from day one he has wanted to be a good horse,” said Riddle of Steve Earl, named for Grammy Award-winning, singer-song writer and Texas native Steve Earle. “He has been simple the whole way.<\/p>\n

“He’s real smart and cautious, and he doesn’t want to step anywhere he doesn’t need to go. And he slips around pretty.<\/p>\n

“I guess styles have changed, but I’ve always liked a horse that felt like that. And I liked a horse that felt like that thirty years ago.”<\/p>\n

Riddle, 68, Ringling, Okla., a former high school teacher and coach, as well as an NCHA president, ranks among the sport’s all-time leading open riders, with earnings of over $3 million.<\/p>\n

Steve Earl, as well as Mean Girl, who Riddle showed to score 217 points in the first go-round, are both descended from Clarks Little Fanny, a Clarke’s Doc Bar daughter foaled in 1984 and shown by Riddle’s wife, Anne, to earn $65,000 in the non-pro limited age division. <\/p>\n

Clarks Little Fanny produced four NCHA money earners of $119,727, including two daughters by Smart Little Lena who, between them, produced, 16 NCHA money earners of over $757,414.<\/p>\n

Steve Earl is sired by Boon A Little, bred and shown by Riddle’s brother-in-law, the late Bill Freeman, a Triple Crown winner and earner of $4.5 million.<\/p>\n

Riddle also scored 217 points in the first go-round on Mean Girl, sired by Cat Ichi and owned by Riddle’s daughter, Havey Riddle.<\/p>\n

Nothing To Lose and Tate Bennett, who tied with 221 points for the win in the first go-round with Bennett and his other mount, Rios Jewel, scored 217 points yesterday to claim the high cumulative score of 438 from both go-rounds.<\/p>\n

Matt Sargood and Beau Galyean both marked 218 for Saturday’s second high score.<\/p>\n

Australian native Sargood rode his homebred gelding Cats King James, from the second crop of Sargood’s first NCHA Futurity finalist, King Of The Cats.<\/p>\n

“He’s a big, strong colt and he thinks about it a lot,” Sargood said. “He knows where he’s going and what he’s doing. He just doesn’t have a bad day.”<\/p>\n

Galyean, who won the 2008 NCHA Futurity with Metallic Cat, impressed on Saturday with MK Jessies Cat Ms, a mare by Smooth As A Cat out of Jessies Starlight Ms, a mare that has produced\u00c2\u00a0 earners of $379,000, including NCHA Futurity finalist CDs Starlight Ms, and NCHA Derby finalist MK Little Miss Trona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Earl and Bill Riddle share a lot of history, as do Riddle and the…<\/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-9652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cutting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9652","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=9652"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9655,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9652\/revisions\/9655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sallyharrison.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}