Nicole Petty and Travelin Playgunz continued the Oregon rider's success in the Reno Snaffle Bit Futurity Non-Pro Limited. • Photo by Molly Montag.

Nicole Petty Rides New Purchase To Reno Snaffle Bit Futurity Win

Long-range plans have their benefits, but sometimes it pays to work up some courage and just take a shot.

Nicole Petty, of Roseburg, Oregon, bought Travelin Playgunz three weeks before the Reno Snaffle Bit Futurity. Although she hadn’t bought him with the event in mind, the gray son of Equi-Stat Elite $9 Million Sire Playgun out of Smart Travelin Chic (by Smart Chic Olena) gave her the feeling he definitely deserved a shot in the Non-Pro Limited.

“The first week we had him home he just made huge leaps and bounds and I really got along with him really well,” said Petty, a nurse for a pharmaceutical company. “I’m so excited there’s a futurity back here in Reno. I had a 3-year-old, so I thought why not?”

She said the gelding was honest throughout the Non-Pro Limited, which he won on Friday, Sept. 14, with a composite of 622 (203 herd/210.5 rein/208.5 cow). He did it by finishing third in the herd work, in a tie for first in reining and fourth in the boxing.

Woman standing by a horse
Nicole Petty & Travelin Playgunz. • Photo by Molly Montag.

“He was still a little green, and I kind of just got a wild hair and said I was gonna enter him up and see how it went,” said Petty, who after pocketing the $2,500 winner’s check has Equi-Stat record of roughly $18,000. “He’s a really good sport. He still needed some finishing, but he’s been taking it really good.”

The Futurity Non-Pro Limited Reserve Championship went to Mel Smith and Let The Cash Ride. Smith and the gelding by Olena Oak out of Playgirl For Cash (by Nu Cash) marked a composite of 612 (210 herd/191.5 reining/210.5 cow).

Petty says the plan is to point Travalin Playgunz, aka “Henry,” to next year’s derbies. However, she’s got her work cut out for her trying to keep her younger daughter, Harper, from taking over her ride. The youngest of her three children — Harper has older brothers Hayden, 12, and Noah, 8, — has already tried to claim her mother’s new horse as her own.

“She thinks she’s gonna get him when I get back since she didn’t get to ride him a lot, but we’ll see about that,” Petty said with a laugh. “She’s not quite ready.”

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