The Southern California Reined Cow Horse Association has grown to more than 400 member in 2010, but before the club launched into a new show season. it “buckled up” 2009 with an awards banquet at Stuart Cellars Vinceyard in Temecula on Feb. 20. Outgoing president Cindy Mendoza received special recognition, as new president Edwards takes the reins. The first event is March 12-13 at Casner Ranch, where the Green Oaks Pot O’ Gold Show, sponsored by Green Oaks Ranch, kicks of the season.

SAN ANGELO, Texas – It came down to the final run.

Randy Paul and Smokeelan, going last down the fence in pursuit of front-runner Doug Williamson and Hes Wright On, pulled off a clutch 223 score in the cow work to claim the 2010 World’s Greatest Horseman title Feb. 7 at the First Community Credit Unior Spur Arena. The National Reined Cow Horse Association’s four-event competition tested the world’s best trainers and stock horses in herd work, rein work, cow work and steer stopping.

After the first finals segment in herd work, Paul faced an uphill climb. He and Smokeelan (Elans Playboy x Smart Little Smokee), owned by Jill Smiekel George, sat in seventh place, but the subsequent rein work sparked optimism for the trainer who has won more than $1 million in National Reining Horse Association earnings.

THERMAL — Keri Potter took her first step into the race to qualify for the Pfizer Million when she rode Rockford I to victory in the Feb. 1 $50,000 EMO Grand Prix, presented by Pfizer Animal Health at the HITS Desert Horse Park.

The Del Mar resident and her horse topped 30 challengers in the circuit’s first Sunday feature class. International Course Designer Marina Azevedo set a challenging first-round course that left only three horse-and-rider teams advancing to the jump-off round.

Potter has ridden the 14-year-old Rockford I, which she owns, for six years, during which she has qualified for the FEI World Cup twice and won numerous grand prix events. Sunday’s victory boosted her toward a qualification for the Pfizer $1 Million Grand Prix, to be held at HITS-on-the-Hudson on Sept. 12 in Saugerties, N.Y.

“HITS has given me something to look forward to,” she said. “What a great opportunity for our horses and riders to be able to compete for such high stakes. If I qualify, I will do my best to get there.”

POMONA — The nearly 50-year tradition of Southern California’s Arabian riders and horses starting the new year at Fairplex continued Jan. 29-31, except the “Whittier Lions Show” as it was known became the Sierra Empire Arabian Horse Association’s Annual Show.

After hosting the first, major Arabian show of the new season for the past 48 years, the Whittier Host Lions Club decided to stop running this show and focus on other activities.

POMONA — With a year’s experience under her belt in Extreme Cowboy Race competition, Robin Bond returned to the Equine Affaire at the Fairplex Feb. 4-7 to see what she had learned in 12 months.

As the second-place finisher last year on Jose’s Perfection in her first Extreme Cowboy Race, Bond didn’t have high to climb. She won this year’s Extreme Cowboy Race at Equine Affaire with a cumulative score of XXX on the same horse that took her to the reserve last year, nicknamed “Chapo”.

Now the climb becomes more challenging, as the trainer at Rancho Dos Palmas Ranch in Vista eyes competing at the Calgary Stampede this summer.

“It’s a big deal,” she says of the Calgary Stampede Regional Championship July 9 in Alberta, Canada. This year’s race at the Stampede is an open event with a total purse of $14,000.
Bond fared well last November in her only other national competition, the Extreme Cowboy Race World Championships in Topeka, Kan., where she and Chapo took third in the professional division — just one point shy of the title. The 11-entry Equine Affaire event was the first race since for Bond and Chapo, a 12-year-old Quarter Horse gelding woned by Ricky Cruz.

BURBANK — Many of California’s reining horses and riders began the new year at California Reining Horse Association’s Winter Madness Reining show, held Jan. 15-17 at Los Angeles Equestrian Center. The show offered exhibitors the chance to school or start showing their horses for the 2010 show season. CRHA also made plans to introduce classes and clinics to encourage new riders to take part in reining.

Good start to the show season
The CRHA Winter Madness show came earlier this year, since it was previously held in February or March. Many exhibitors and show officials said they benefited from the schedule change.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Tony Piggott riding Rockin W marked a record-tying 229 before a packed house at Will Rogers Coliseum to win the Open Finals of the National Cutting Horse Association Futurity on Dec. 13, 2009.

Owned Alice Walton’s Rocking W Ranch, Rockin W–a stallion by Dual Rey out of Walton’s former NCHA Horse of the Year Boon San Kitty–is a two-time winner of the NCHA Classic Challenge, and an earner of more than $498,000.

The 23-day event from Nov. 21-Dec. 13, 2009 included more than 1,800 entries who sought after a share of the $4 million purse.

Six of the 28 Futurity Open finalists scored more than 220 points, but it was the duo of Tony Piggott and Rockin W who claimed the prestigious NCHA Futurity Championship and the winner’s check of $250,000.