The National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) Super Stakes Classic Limited Open finals, held April 4 at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas, may have been small, but it was packed with talented horses and riders. Eight duos rode to the herd, and Reyefied and Brent Erickson came out on top when they scored a 221 from the second draw.
“Anytime you can get showed clean in here and it all fits, it’s good,” said Erickson, who received his first Super Stakes title. “Honestly, I really had no expectations going into it. I was just going to go down and show clean, and it worked. Just be clean and whatever happened, happened.
“Just going into it, we knew we had a good draw,” he continued. “The first cow presented itself and the cows we picked just fit. Everything fit, and my good buddy Grant [Setnicka] cleaned me up over here on my third cut and helped me out a bunch, and it was just great. Everything worked.”
Reyefied, a son of Dual Rey who was bred by Mahler/Meredith, collected $9,976 for his owner, Dacole Investment Company. As a 3-year-old, he showed a lot of promise, winning the 2016 Utah Cutting Horse Association Futurity Open. But a bad bought with EPM left him unable to compete the majority of his 4-year-old year.
“It’s pretty exciting to see him starting to come back into his own like we knew he could be,” Erickson said.
Out of Shes A Smooth Cat (by Smooth As A Cat), the gelding had earnings of $28,957 coming into the Super Stakes. Erickson planned to keep adding to that total by continuing to haul to other limited age events.
On his own as a trainer since 2003, Erickson, of Wilton, California, did not get into cutting until he was in college at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, studying for his animal science degree.
“I was just riding in college there and going to school, and my advisor asked if I wanted to go to work for an internship with a cutting horse trainer. I had no idea what it was. Here I am!” he added with a laugh.
