Ranch/Stock Horse
Missy Jean Oehlhof Champion at The Non-Pro
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- Created on Sunday, 17 June 2012
- Written by Mark Thompson
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“If anybody can pick them [good cows] that late, Ed [Gainesville, Texas, trainer Ed Dufurrena] and Steve [Oehlhof, Missy’s husband and horse’s trainer] can do it. I have a lot of confidence in them,” the winning rider said. “If they tell me to do something, I do it. And then, Michael Cooper and Casey Green turned me around. They were a lot of help. I could hear Michael and Casey both coaching me.”
Oehlhof lives in Bush, La., with daughter Millie Joe Rosenberg. Mille Joe competed during Sunday’s Junior Youth competition. Missy Jean’s husband, Steve Oehlhof, trains cutting horses from a base in Grandview, Texas. Missy Jean commutes to Texas or meets her husband at cutting events about twice a month. The two will celebrate their second wedding anniversary Tuesday in Oklahoma City, during the last day of the show.
Missy Jean Oehlhof bred and raised Take Alotta Faith (Kit Dual x Alotta Merada x Docs Stylish Oak) and the mare is the first home-horse she has ever competed with. By winning 4-Year-Old Non-Pro and Limited Non-Pro titles, Oehlhof and the horse earned $8,093. That pushed the mare’s career earnings over $40,000.
Chartier, a career earner of more than $350,000 as a cutter, is the wife of cutting trainer R.L. Chartier. Mica’s mother, cutting horse owner and breeder Danny Motes, bred Light Reys (CD Lights x Rey Out West x Dual Rey) and sold her to her daughter last year. Chartier and the horse earned $3,892 with their Co-Reserve title.
Venezuela native Sigala, 24, moved to Weatherford, Texas, four years ago to pursue his interest in cutting. He’s also a senior student at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.
Sigala and RL Mojo Cat (High Brow Cat x Osage Award x Peppy San Bader) also were Limited Non-Pro Reserve Champions and earned a combined $5,372.
Lloyd Wolf started cutting three years ago. Sunday at age 67, he picked up his top title and top check so far with a 216 aboard 6-year-old mare Wood Be Lite to win the Select Non-Pro/Amateur.
“It’s just something I’d always admired all my life,” Wolf said of his continuing pursuit of the sport.
The cattleman, wheat farmer and dairy operator, based in Winthrop, Texas, south of Wichita Falls, bought a 12-year-old gelding and started learning to cut three years ago. This is the highest profile show he has competed at so far. Until he started cutting, he had ridden horses, but had never competed in a horse sport.
Wolf has only owed Wood Be Lite (Nitas Wood x Miss Lite A Lena x Lite Lena) since March. They had competed at about 10 smaller shows, and had won six or seven smaller checks, before earning $3,820 this time.
Wolf’s wife, Linda, said when Lloyd learned his score had been readjusted, giving him a surprise victory, his emotions ran pretty high. “He would kill me if I told you, but he just started crying,” Linda said. “He was very excited. This was a dream come true for him. He just loves to ride.”
Advised that The Non Pro was a fun show, Gary Fields decided to give it a try with his 8-year-old mare Gabreyella.
The Weatheford, Texas, air conditioning business owner had a great time, winning the $15,000 Amateur division, making another any-age finals, and then winning another $2,500 in Sunday’s winner-take-all Shootout.
The Shootout, a The Non Pro tradition, included winners from four of its any-age horse events, plus the 5/6-Year-Old and 4-Year-Old Amateur Champion horses and riders.
Heading to the herd first in the Shootout, Fields and Gabryella (Dual Rey x A Playboys Desire x Freckles Playboy) set the bar with a 221 and it held up to win.
“The whole week built. I marked a couple of 216s, a 220 to win the [$35,000] Amateur, and a 221 to win this. I couldn’t be any more happy with how consistent the mare was,” Fields said.
He added that his trainer R.L. Chartier, Weatherford, Texas, gave him good advice in recommending the show.
Fields and his wife, Karen, live at Silverado on the Brazos in Weatherford, Texas. They met while both in their 20s because both competed as cutters, then they gave up the sport for about 20 years while building Gary’s business. Now, he can afford to arm himself with a lot better horses.
“This is the first great horse I’ve owned,” Fields said. He added he and his wife also have weanlings out of the mare bred by Metallic Cat, High Brow CD and Neat Little Cat. “She’s kind of the foundation of our program.”
He’s trying hard to push Gabreyella’s career earnings over the $100,000 mark. The pair’s hot week added about $9,000, and that moved her meter over the $82,000 mark.
Winning for the second time in a week on Father’s Day, Fields got to share the big moment with his son, Ross.
“I was supposed to be at Texoma for Father’s Day, fishing for stripers,” Fields said. His plans changed because he became eligible to stay in OKC and compete for an extra $2,500, with no additional entry fee. “He [Gary’s son, Ross] came and got to watch this.”
A pair of 222 scores by Collbran Larsen, Texoma, Texas, and Doris Wood, Stephenville, Texas, led the way in the Senior Youth.
Larsen marked his winning score in the first of two cattle sets with 2005 mare DS Mrs Wilsonfreckle (Wilsons Lil Freckles x Azucar Bar x Docs Sugar Daddy). His mother, Wilma Larsen, and his father, trainer Dana Larsen, have owned the horse since December 2006.
Wood, the daughter of NCHA Hall of Fame trainer Kobie Wood and NCHA Non-Pro Hall of Fame rider Paula Wood, marked her 222 in the second set riding Pepto Boom, a 2005 gelding owned and also trained by her dad.
Larsen, 17, won a Classic/Challenge Limited Non-Pro title with “DS” at last year’s NCHA Summer Spectacular cutting in Fort Worth, Texas.
Garrett Hampton Tops Junior Youth
Garrett Hampton, 12, Rogersville, Mo., won a close dual for the Junior Youth title with a 221 aboard his home-owned and go-to 12-year-old gelding Duallys Drifter.
Lance Cooper, 11, Weatherford, Texas, earned the Reserve Championship with a 220 on MK CD High Roller, a horse brought to the show for especially for him.
“I show a few other horses, but he’s my main one,” Hampton said. He and the horse have fared well three years in a row at The Non Pro. They were Reserve Champions in the Junior Youth two years ago, and they placed fourth last year.
Lance, the son of cutting couple Michael and Jennifer Cooper, fared well during his very first time in the saddle aboard MK CD High Roller (CD Olena x Jessies Starlight MS x Grays Starlight).
The horse’s trainer, Kenucky-based Gabe Reynolds, hauled him to Oklahoma City for Cooper to compete with.
“I showed him, and he was really good,” Cooper said. “He takes a lot of loping.”
The Non-Pro Plus The Open continues today with first rounds of the $2,000 Limit Rider and 4-Year-Old Open divisions. The show concludes Tuesday with finals in the 4-Year-Old Open, 5/6-Year-Old Open and $2,000 Limit Rider.
Young Guns Dominate
Young guns came out blazing Saturday during The Non Pro Plus The Open cutting at State Fair Park in Oklahoma City as Alexis Stephas, 20, won 5/6-Year-Old Non-Pro and 5/6-Year-Old Limited Non-Pro titles, Luke Barnhart, 20, won the Derby Amateur, and Cade McCall, 15, won the $50,000 Non-Pro Any-Age title.
Stephas, Chattanooga, Tenn., was the 2011 National Cutting Horse Association Senior Youth Champion based on her repeated success at any-age horse events last year.
She earned the first two limited-age titles of her career with a 221 Saturday during the 5/6-Year-Old Non-Pro finals. Stephas and her 2006 gelding Ima Little Ichi (Cat Ichi x Ms Bag Of Hope x Freckles Loverboy) also won the 5/6-Year-Old Limited Non-Pro pencil finals and checks totaling $7,360.
Stephas talked her parents, Gus and Connie Stephas, into buying her winning horse in December. She had watched the horse compete with John Tolbert during The Champions Cup, a special event featuring only past NCHA Futurity Open Champion riders.
“I thought he was a cool horse, but I didn’t know I’d own him a week later,” Stephas said. “I tried him out and had to beg dad for him. Finally, he told me I could get him, and we brought him home from Fort Worth.”
The first-time limited-age winner calls her talented but somewhat mischievous partner “Meeko.” He’s nicknamed after the raccoon in the Disney movie “Pocohantas.” “He gets into everything, like a raccoon,” said Stephas, who shared her great news with a call to her parents immediately after the win.
“I told my mom, and she instantly started crying,” the young rider said. “They bought a great horse for me, and I’m so excited to see what we can do.”
Barnhart, Hesston, Kan., earned his first limited-age victory a year and a half ago at the Abilene Spectacular in Abilene, Texas.
He picked up his second win Saturday in Oklahoma City by guiding Silhouette Smooth, a mare he bought in late March, to a solid 219 in the Derby Amateur finals.
The mare (Smooth As A Cat x TM Silhouette x Smart Lil Ricochet), trained until recently by Barnhart’s longtime mentor Dirk Blakesley, Augusta, Kan., also made the Derby Amateur finals with her new rider at May’s Breeder’s Invitational in Tulsa.
“I’ve only had her about 2 ½ months,” Barnhart said. He now does most of his own horse training, with some input from Blakesley, based upon things he’s learned from the trainer the past five years.
“She hadn’t been shown before I bought her,” Barnhart said. “She’s come a long way the past couple of months, and she just keeps getting better.”
The son of Scott and Karen Barnhart credits his parents, Blakesley, and good horses for past and recent success that has included making several limited-age finals.
“It’s been a little longer than I hoped it would have been [between his first and second limited-age victories], but it does feel good.”
In past years, Cade Hansma, Weatherford, Texas, competed almost exclusively as a youth cutter.
This year, the soon to be high school sophomore said her parents told her if she earned good enough grades, they’d let her compete in some extra events this summer.
Earning mostly A’s and B’s earned the daughter of husband and wife cutters Paul and Julie Hansma an extra ride on her favorite horse, 2002 gelding Bob Dualin (Dual Pep x Capoo x CD Olena), in the $50,000 Non-Pro Any-Age Horse event.
Cade, who has a twin sister, McCall, and an older sister, Alannah, teamed up with “Bob” to mark a winning 221 for the win.
With her mother taking a picture of Cade on a cell phone as the last rider finished up, Paul Hansma shouted “A 222!” loud enough for his daughter to hear. That startled Cade for a moment, then she quickly realized that her dad was just having a little fun.
“He’s a big prankster,” said Cade, who also earned a Youth title at The Non Pro in 2010.
