When Equi-Stat Elite $2 Million Rider Tarin Rice heard there was a $40,000-added any-age cutting at this year’s Augusta Futurity, he knew exactly where he and the stallion CR Gotcha Covered were going to be come January.
“He’s been a great horse for us his whole life and I have not come away with as many championships as I felt like I should’ve,” Rice said of the stallion owned by Joel Colgrove, Sr., of Boligee, Alabama. “He’s just been a really good horse, so I wanted to show him this year in some of these bigger cuttings.”
His instinct to show the son of Dualin Boon at the Augusta Futurity in The 40, a class patterned off the successful Mercuria/National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) World Series of Cutting, proved to be a good one as the 7-year-old stallion marked a winning 223 on Thursday (Jan. 19) at James Brown Arena in Augusta, Georgia.
It also proved to be a great launching pad for a championship title chase. The plan is to haul CR Gotcha Covered for an NCHA World title in 2019, Rice said.
“He’s probably the strongest horse I’ve ever rode,” said Rice, of Poolville, Texas. “He’s fast, there’s nothing he can’t do, and it just gives you a lot of confidence — and it gives him a lot of confidence.”
Organizers at the Augusta Futurity created The 40 — which featured $20,000-added classes for both Non-Pro and Open riders — to celebrate the show’s fortieth anniversary. It also filled the slot in the show schedule that had traditionally been filled by the Mercuria Series, which ended last year when Mercuria Global Energy’s sponsorship with the NCHA concluded.
“I think the Mercuria and any events similar to that are great for the industry, because of the price value of these older horses goes up,” Rice said. “Like, my instance, my horse is 7; can’t show him in any more aged events, and so it gives me a place to go and keep showing him, and keep promoting him as a stud and as a show horse.”
The $7,756 first-place money that CR Gotcha Covered earned in The 40 pushed his lifetime earnings of more than $215,000. He is the leading earner by his sire, Dualin Boon, as well as his dam, The Catattac, a daughter of Equi-Stat Elite $80 Million Sire High Brow Cat who has produced the earners of almost $300,000.
The Reserve Championship went to Somethingtobelievin and Brett McGlothlin, who marked a 220.5 for the trainer and his wife, Jody, of Perrin, Texas. The win for McGlothlin and the mare (Hydrive Cat x Playin T Etta x TR Dual Rey) made for their second straight successful trip to Augusta. In 2018, they won the 5/6-Year-Old Open at the show held at the James Brown Arena.
The mare bred by SDP Buffalo Ranch earned $6,229 in Georgia, bumping her Equi-Stat record to nearly $200,000.
For more news and information from the Western performance horse industry, subscribe to Quarter Horse News.
