Nadine Payne & Great Expectations • Hart PhotosNadine Payne, of Overbrook, Oklahoma, kept repeating one word after the Non-Pro finals at the 2014 National Cutting Horse Association Futurity – surreal. The Austrian-born rider was finding it hard to believe that she and her 3-year-old filly, Great Expectations (Third Cutting x Miss Biscalena x Mister Dual Pep), had captured the championship Dec. 11.
“Crazy. Surreal. I still can’t believe it,” Payne said after the last Non-Pro horse left the pen and the scores had been made official. “After the first set, I was hoping the cows would get a little better because I know all the people in the first set had a really tough time with cows. The second set started off better. When I cut my first cow, they wouldn’t clear. All I was thinking was, ‘Please get out of the way; please get out of the way.’ I just threw down and my mare just took over. It was crazy.”
Payne, who is married to cutting horse trainer James Payne, marked a 219 as the fourth team to work in the second set of cattle. The score held, and Payne picked up a $43,093 check for the victory. Great Expectations was bred by Bill Masterson, and the Paynes, who have had the horse for all of her training, purchased the filly from him in May.
“I’ve always liked her,” Payne said. When asked what she likes most about the horse, she replied, “She just fits me. She has a big heart, and she just wants to come back to the cow every time and her try. A lot of people were questioning her physical ability, but I’ve always liked her heart. She’s very smart.”
Mary Ann Rapp, of Weatherford, Texas, riding Tuned Up To Drive (Hydrive Cat x SDP Finely Tuned x Smart Little Lena), a filly she bred and raised with her husband Phil Rapp, marked a 217.5 as the sixth horse to work in the second set of the 26-horse finals.
“I was really, really pleased with my mare,” Rapp said after collecting her trophy and belt buckle. “She was as good as can be. She’s a little show horse, and I was very proud of her. We did our job and did the best that we could.”
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