horse chasing a cow
Quincee Clark & Vintage San. • Photo by Molly Montag.

Mississippi Teen Switches Disciplines And Wins NRCHA World Championship

Quincee Clark was riding reining horses when she got the bug to try something else. Blame it on her trainer, Dell Hendricks.

Hendricks, an Equi-Stat Elite $1 Million Rider due to his reining exploits, had started to show some reined cow horses. Clark thought it looked like fun and, a year later, the 16-year-old from Doddsville, Mississippi, won the National Reined Cow Horse Association (NRCHA) Youth Limited World Championship.

“I just followed him,” Clark said, after riding Vintage San to the championship on Friday morning (Feb. 22). “He convinced me into buying a cow horse and, here we are.”

Clark and the 2012 gelding (Ricochet San x Shiney Vintage Chic x Smart Chic Olena) won with a composite of 433.5 (211.5 rein/222 cow). The win in the John Justin Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, came as a surprise to the teen, who has only been riding reined cow horses about a year.

“I was just happy to be here. I’ve had a cold all week, so I didn’t know how it was going to go,” she said in the stall area with “Ricky Bobby” after the win. “I hadn’t been able to ride as much as I’ve wanted to. I was shooting to make the top ten and make it back to the finals was all I wanted, and just go have fun in the finals.”

Although Clark said to read and move cattle has been tough — “So many tears were put into the cow work!” — she admitted the biggest challenge was programming herself to spin three and one-half times in the rein work, not the full four spins that she did in reining.

“Count at the fence,” she laughed.

The win in Fort Worth paid $635 in addition to several prizes.  Including the money from Cow Town, the gelding bred by Carolyn Edson, of Whitesboro, Texas, has compiled an Equi-Stat record of $3,662. Clark has earned more than $4,500.

The NRCHA Youth Limited Reserve World Championship went to Alex Rose and Peppys Hickory Jane. The Gallipolis, Ohio, resident and the mare (Peppys Lil Wil x Hickorys Jane x Doc’s Hickory) marked a 428.5 (213 rein/215.5 cow). They earned $508 for owner Kim Jividen-Rose, also of Gallipolis.

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