Total Earnings: $452,273
An apprenticeship to an equine chiropractor brought Hayden Upton to the United States from Australia 22 years ago. He grew up around horses but it was through working on cutting horses that drew him into the sport as a trainer. Upton had worked for Gerald O’Brien in Australia where he learnt how to break horses of all disciplines from thoroughbreds to kid’s ponies but he never worked for a cutting horse trainer. Keep On Reading!
Total Earnings: $237,828
Cory Deel grew up in Denton, North Carolina and rode bulls. He was encouraged to get a job and with no horse experience at all he started working for a horse trader cleaning stalls. The trader had cutting horses and gave Deel his first experience riding one. Deel went on to work for Eddie Braxton in South Carolina for four years where he worked a lot of horses and gained most of his knowledge. Deel moved to Texas to work for Mike and Tammy Jones in Wichita Falls. He showed horses and rode their colts. He then bought his current facility in Jacksboro, TX two years ago.
Total Earnings: $4,429,007
Phil Hanson’s dad, Phil Sr., was a performance horse trainer so he grew up riding and being involved in the industry. As a kid he had summer jobs building houses and later pursued a degree in Architectural Drafting and Design from Phoenix Institute of Technology. The housing market wasn’t doing well when he graduated so after having no luck finding a job, he turned to training horses.
It was meant to be, with Hanson having gone on to win all of the Triple Crown events and more. In the beginning, when his cutting horse training business was getting off the ground, he would work horses and then draft house designs.
Travis Stewart looks at two year olds like an artist looks at a blank canvas.They have limited experience with people so he can mold them into what he thinks they need to be to succeed in their performance careers. While Stewart has been focused on two year olds, he does get to show on occasion to complete the picture. He truly enjoys the day to day process of training at home.
He attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in California where he earned his Animal Science degree. It was there he discovered the performance horse world, which soon replaced his plans for vet school. Stewart is also a talented painter and sculptor in his free time.
Andy Sutliff and MK Smooth Texas
Submitted and Written by member Shelley Casciato
How can a guy attain what Andy Sutliff has earned with lifetime NCHA earnings of $47,630.00 and USCHA earnings of $17,964.00 while living in an English dominated area with no cows, no walker, just an indoor pen and a flag?
Photo By Hudyma Photography
Total Earnings: $1,672,203
Dustin Gonnet bought a horse from a sale that a cutting horse trainer had put some time on and he ended up getting a job with that trainer, Doug Reinhardt, to start colts and later he worked for Scott Amos. He never turned back! Gonnet grew up cowboying and riding colts his whole life in Saskatchewan, Canada. Gonnet was a true student of the sport, spending many hours watching other trainers in the practice pen at shows and applying what he thought would work for him and building on that.
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.
$3 Million Trainer Adan Banuelos
It’s that time of year again! Two year olds are being started and the ever important foundation for the rest of their career is being established.
Reserve NCHA Futurity champion for the second year running, Adan Banuelos has already earned in excess of $3 million in the show-pen. At just 31 years of age, Adan has proven his mastery in the show pen. Now we take a closer look at his skill as a horseman and learn how he handles his two year olds.
Adan is captivating to watch and listen to because he is such a student of the horse. His respect for the horse is admirable. He reiterates all the time how he likes to TEACH his horses something rather than TELL them!
Adan wants to instill a “where’s the cow” mentality in his horses, so that no matter what angle they land or where they end up (past the cow or behind the cow) that they want to find the cow and go with it.
Being judged is always emotional, even when you choose to be judged in the name of competition. Subjective sports are often rife with controversy, because let’s face it, everyone has an opinion. Cutting is no exception.
Judging only works when there is a clearly understood system governed by rules, enacted by experts, and most importantly, is delivered consistently. You could say, this has been the overriding mission of Russell McCord for more than 30 years!
From northern Queensland, Australia, Cody Lamont has quickly made a name for himself in cutting. Growing up in the saddle, Lamont roamed his family’s cattle stations on the back of a horse. As a young man, Lamont had a passion for rodeo where he competed as a roper.
In 2009, Lamont landed a job with the great Al Dunning. And so his intrigue for cutting horses was born.
With a degree in Biosystems Engineering from Clemson University, an old remote control car and four years of tweaking, Billy Weir developed the RealCow Training System, which does everything but moo and poop!
Like all good inventions, Realcow was born out of necessity. A cutting horse trainer based in South Carolina, Weir had used almost every type of mechanical cow on the market, but said they were limited and he needed something better.
“Where I live it’s hard to get a good supply of cattle,” Weir said. “English-bred cattle are slow moving and hard to train a horse on and I wanted to make a machine that would make up for the slack.”
To win in the sport of Cutting, you need to have a trained cow horse! Six-million dollar winner Austin Shepard is the man to teach you how to do this. Buy his DVD to learn how to teach your horse to work a cow. Click here to purchase your own DVD Now!
While he mightn’t actually be bionic, Phil Rapp’s track history in cutting certainly suggests something super human when it comes to winning events!
As the top money earner in the history of the sport, more than $8.4-million to date, Phil has truly spent his life showing and training cutting horses.
He recently shared this vast experience with around 25 amateurs and non-pros at an NCHA Cutting Academy clinic in Fort Smith, Arkansas sponsored by Waco Bend.
Phil zeroed in on rider’s skills in the herd, and emphasized the importance of driving forward for decisive cuts.
Phil revealed many gems including:
• How to clear the herd on your cut
• Why you need to use two hands sometimes to get a square stop
• Why, if you’re having trouble on one side of the arena, it’s probably because of what you may be doing on the other side
• How waiting on your cow can help you get even with the cow
• How to stay even, on both sides of the cow and why it’ll help your scores and much more….
Cutting Horse Training Online now features three videos from the clinic available to watch now!
Tell us your favorite nugget of wisdom from Phil Rapp below!
