Home
> Hall
of Fame >
Hall of Fame Horses - Hall of Fame >
Royal Cutter
Bred in North Texas by Rex Cauble, this son of
the NCHA Hall Of Fame sire Cutter Bill hit the ground in 1968. Royal
Cutter was out of Royal Ida May, a daughter of the great Royal King, and
as a yearling, attracted the attention of NRCHA Hall Of Fame member Don
Dodge as he visited Cauble's ranch. Soon the gelding was on a trailer
headed to California.
Don started him in cutting training and
one of his customers, Ken Sutton, showed interest in the horse. Don told
Kenny that Royal Cutter would make an excellent prospect for the Snaffle
Bit Futurity, so Ken purchased the gelding and focused in that
direction. Ken, who was 57 at the time, was a car dealer and Non Pro
rider, but decided they could go head to head with the trainers in Open
competition.
The preliminaries of the event were the only warm
up the horse would need for the rest of his career, because after making
the finals, he would dominate competition on the West Coast for years to
come. He swept them, winning the herd work, the rein work, and the fence
work with 74's and 75's. Les Vogt remembers being so impressed that he
went right to Rex Cauble and bought Royal Ida May, Royal Cutters dam, as
the rest of the Snaffle Bitters scoured the country for more Cutter Bill
offspring. The following year, Ken, who is also an NRCHA Hall Of Fame
member, went to Bobby Ingersoll, and they put Royal Cutter into the
hackamore. Ken entered the horse in the Hackamore Stakes and they won it
easily.
In classic fashion, they moved him into the bridle and
the wins continued. Up and down the West Coast, Bobby Ingersoll won
every major bridle horse competition on him, and after showing him 22
times... had only one second place finish. Bobby showed him in the
bridle classes while Ken filled in the rest of his schedule with
cutting, and hunting. "I used to be quite a deer hunter," Sutton Said,
"I'd ride him in the hills and if I saw a deer I'd jump off and shoot.
And he'd just stand there eating grass while I was doing it".
After winning the Snaffle Bit Futurity and Hackamore Stakes it was time
to try for the Triple Crown, and once again, Royal Cutter proved
unbeatable as he was crowned the champion of the Bridle Sweepstakes,
making him the only horse in NRCHA history to win all three events. Two
years later, this time with Bobby in the saddle, he came back and did it
again... and then at 14 years of age, he won it once more, but now
against horses half his age. He retired from reined cow horse
competition in Bend, Oregon after marking 78's and 79's, and Bobby
remembers the judge, Wayne Havens, coming up to him after the show and
telling him if he had it to do over again, he'd have marked him an 80.
The last time Royal Cutter hit the show pen was at a cutting in
Reno, marking a 73.5, and since Ken was slowing down after suffering a
heart attack he figured that was as good a place stop him as any . Royal
Cutter finished out his last years as all great horses should...
wandering green pastures... and being a friend and companion to his
owner. He passed away in 1995 at the age of 27 just one year before Ken,
and now... his memory lives on in the Hall Of Fame as one of the
greatest cow horses of all time.
|