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World Cutting Horse Association – Making Cutting Accessible

September 14th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Friendly, fun, and affordable is the mission behind the fast growing World Cutting Horse Association based out of Oklahoma and Texas. Six years ago, Lainie Whitmire founded the WCHA to help cutters with smaller budgets have a place to show. They started with some very small shows but prayed it would work. With the help of friends and their wider network spreading the word, the shows were a success.

With approximately 2,000 members, the WCHA works, Whitmire said, because it is made up of friendly, helpful, salt of the earth people who do the hard work. The goal is to make the association fun, inclusive and easy to get involved with.

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Member Spotlight – Lillly Loraas – Duluth, MN

September 14th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Lilly and Smart Like Pepto Rio

Lilly Loraas first started cutting about a year ago and at 14 years old she has big dreams. She is a regional director for the NYCHA and hopes to one day become president or vice president of the board. She also hopes to compete at the world finals and continue learning about the sport.

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Tiffani Veltri – The Power Of Massage For Cutting Horses

September 14th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Tiffani Veltri assessing a horse

Like any athlete, a cutting horse must be kept comfortable in order to perform to the best of his ability. While this involves a team of people such as the vet, farrier, and equine dentist, another health modality that’s becoming increasingly popular is massage therapy. Nationally Certified Equine Massage Therapist Tiffanie Veltri said massage can have immediate benefits for helping a horse release tension and rehab sore muscles.

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Trainer’s Corner – Wesley Galyean – Claremore, OK

August 4th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Wesley Galyean

Total Earnings: $4,051,497

An Open Futurity winner as a 21 year-old non-pro, Wesley Galyean had always known he wanted to be a cutting horse trainer. There was no plan B for him. Cutting has been in his family for three generations, both his father Jody and grandfather Kenneth Galyean were trainers. A lot of people tried to convince him to go to college and skip the horse training, but Galyean said it was in his blood. If it’s what you love, keep on fighting, work hard, pray hard and give it everything you have he said.

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Member Spotlight: Kylie Barnett – Tamworth, NSW, Australia

August 4th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Kylie and Yugilbar Gday Kitty

Kylie Barnett has been around horses her whole life. Her background is in camp drafting (an Australian sport that shares some similarities with reined cow horse) which goes back to her grandfather, but she has always enjoyed watching cutting at the Australian NCHA Futurity. She was watching the Futurity sale and saw a mare she liked that wasn’t going for much so she decided to take a chance and buy her! Keep On Reading!

Trainer’s Corner – Guy Woods

July 24th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Guy Woods

Total Earnings: $2,729,007

Originally from Australia, Guy Woods grew up in the horse business. His dad was a cutting horse trainer and so he started showing as a youth. At age 18, Guy moved to the States to work for a reining trainer. His boss later suggested he work for cutting horse trainer, Bill Riddle, and the rest is history!

Guy has been working for EE Ranches for an impressive 32 years! He said the key is really good communication with the owners, the Ellards. Several years into working for EE Ranches, Mrs. Ellard started showing a lot. She was the head loper and she was in the trenches with Guy. She saw the good, the bad and the ugly, Guy said. She saw every aspect of the sport, which helped her understand cutting from a trainer’s perspective and the challenges they face. He said this has been the key to their partnership’s success and longevity.

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Jay Winborn – From Polo To Cutting – Life Lessons

July 23rd, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Jay Winborn

NCHA Executive Director Jay Winborn has a background in an equine sport you don’t hear much of in performance horse circles. For 15 years, Winborn was an international, professional polo player!

He started off as a groom in a polo club. As a third generation polo player, it was a natural progression for the young rider. He not only competed in the sport, but trained polo horses and ran polo clubs in the Dallas district.

Playing professionally meant a lot of traveling. He would spend four to five months a year in Florida for the winter training and riding. In the summer, the team would travel to New York, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and other states to play in month-long tournaments.

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Creating The Conditions For Success With Michael Cooper Pt2

June 1st, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Michael Cooper talking to clinic participants

As most cutting horse shows start back up in June, it is time to think about your strategy for the rest of the year and get your head in back in the game! Top trainer Michael Cooper offers some great insight into how to do just that!

Set Goals

Michael Cooper spends time with each of his clients on developing their goals. He said setting goals depends on three things: the horse, the rider, and the steps they need to take together to accomplish those goals. For example, what does the client want to do with their horse? Show more themselves or have Cooper show it to try to win the most money on it?

Together, they also decide if it’s an open or a non pro horse or if it can be both at some shows. From there, they work out a plan for the horse. If it’s a horse they just want to show in the non pro or amateur, Cooper will still show it every third show or so at the weekend level to keep it tuned up and increase its money earned.

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Trainer’s Corner: Cullen Chartier

June 1st, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Cullen Chartier Photo by Martin Lengals

Total Earnings: $878,475

With two generations of cutters behind him, you could say cutting is in Cullen Chartier’s blood. Before committing to be a trainer, Chartier’s main focus was other sports. At one point, he pursued a sports broadcasting career, but made the switch after watching his brother, RL Chartier make the Futurity finals.

Cullen showed in the youth and worked for his dad, Randy Chartier for two years. He then went to work for RL at Wrigley Ranches. After two years, RL told him it was time to go work for someone else, so Chartier headed off to Paul Hansma. He spent four years with Hansma, before starting his own business training out of Paul’s place.

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Member Spotlight – Garth Bullis, Holcomb, Kansas

June 1st, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Garth Bullis and Reyality Check

Garth Bullis began his horse career in the English world and soon moved into the western disciplines. He tried reining, and roping but still hadn’t found his niche. He came across cutting in a video and thought it was the coolest thing he had seen. After finding a retired cutting horse trainer who helped him learn, he became hooked.

He purchased a mare in 2014, got her started and showed her. She taught Bullis a lot. The pair ended up winning the Minnesota Non Pro Breeder’s Futurity and all three go rounds before that. He really felt like cutting was what he should be doing and after his dad passed away, he decided to really go for it.

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Trainer’s Corner: Scott Amos, Loma, CO

May 7th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Scott Amos

Total Earnings: $979,937

Scott Amos got his start in the reining and cow horse world. He said his parents had horses and he rode and showed growing up. Tim Denton introduced Amos to cutting and gave him his first job during school summers.

Winston Hansma and John Mitchell offered a lot of help and advice along the way when Colorado based Amos was able to come to Texas. He would bring three or four horses down and ride with the two Hall of Famers.

Amos was originally going to go to school to be a prosthetist (a specialist in prosthetics). He had been interested in making artificial limbs after he lost his lower leg in a tractor accident. Amos had a passion for helping kids dealing with the loss of a limb. While he had a full scholarship to study, the lure of training horses was too great.

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Yes! You Can Show During The COVID-19 Shutdown

May 7th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

We are living in a brand new world right now! The current corona virus pandemic has forced all horse shows to be either canceled or postponed for the foreseeable future. But that hasn’t stopped the American Paint Horse Association. They have come up with a way for people to be able to compete from home. Steven Hayes is the APHA’s senior marketing director and he’s the person behind this great idea.

How did you come up with this idea?

“Well, I will say it was a team effort. We have some great people on our team that are very innovative and really thinking for the future. This is a project we’ve been working on for quite a while and it’s been in the queue even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With everything that’s going on, we obviously pushed this to the front of the line to try to help get this released and allow people to still do things with their horses while they’re stuck at home and trying to bear what’s going on in the world.

The whole idea is that we live in a virtual world, right?…We want to be able to touch all the markets and give opportunities for people to do activities with their horses on a lower-cost scale.

In this scenario, it’s a smaller entry fee than most horse shows, but you also have to think that you don’t pay a stall fee, you don’t have to haul your horse, you can do it right from your arena.

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Member Spotlight: Dirceu Grigoletto Jr.

May 7th, 2020 by Sophia Skeith

Dirceu and Rodrigo Taboga

Dirceu grew up in Brazil and always rode horses and worked with cattle. He has been interested in cutting horses from a very young age. He learned about the American Quarter Horse from an episode on TV that showed all the different sports you could do with the breed. He saw cutting and decided that was how he wanted to make a living and he began a journey to learn the sport of cutting.

In Brazil, he mainly focused on two year olds. He said his favorite thing to do is to train and ride horses. You can’t beat the thrill of riding a colt for the first time, getting it trained and showing it for the first time, he said.

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World Cutting Horse Association – Making Cutting Accessible

Member Spotlight – Lillly Loraas – Duluth, MN

Tiffani Veltri – The Power Of Massage For Cutting Horses

Trainer’s Corner – Wesley Galyean – Claremore, OK

Member Spotlight: Kylie Barnett – Tamworth, NSW, Australia

Trainer’s Corner – Guy Woods

Creating The Conditions For Success With Michael Cooper Pt2

Trainer’s Corner: Cullen Chartier

Member Spotlight – Garth Bullis, Holcomb, Kansas

Trainer’s Corner: Scott Amos, Loma, CO

Yes! You Can Show During The COVID-19 Shutdown

Member Spotlight: Dirceu Grigoletto Jr.

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