Shes A Bossy Rebel, a 2022 Metallic Rebel mare, sits high call for California’s Andy Holcomb going into the Old West 4-&-Under Heading finals on June 20, topping the Open progressive rounds with a 678.76 ahead of a stacked field.

Holcomb got the mare midway through her 3-year-old year from Red Arrow Ranch, where Brendon and Lizzy Clark run the cow horse program, and turned her toward the roping.

“They had her in their cow horse program,” Holcomb, who won the first-ever Old West Futurity heeling title in 2024, said. “We kind of got her mid-to-later 3-year-old year, and we took her to Guthrie, took her to Scottsdale and just kind of got solider and better and stepped up over here.”

She’d had little time in the cow horse pen, and Holcomb found a mare built for the quick game of the roping.

“She liked the seven-, eight-second runs instead of a five-minute attention span,” Holcomb laughed.

Moving her from the cow horse to the roping was mostly pen roping and a lot of getting a reactive, cowy mare to settle.

“She’s cowy—not cowy trying to get away from them, but she’s cowy and wants to go to them good, but she’s real reactive,” Holcomb said. “So I spent a lot of time just trying to get her quiet in the box, over the chute, all that stuff … because she’s athletic and wants to do everything right. So once we got through all that, everything was kind of easy for her, I think.”

The breeding behind her is cow, and it’s deep on both sides. The 2022 sorrel mare is by Metallic Rebel, the 2012 red roan son of cutting great Metallic Cat and out of Sweet Abra. Metallic Rebel earned $438,315 on his way to 2017 NCHA Open Horse of the Year and an NCHA world championship, and he has become one of the most in-demand sires in the cutting and cow horse industry—with a first wave of his foals now crossing into the rope horse pen. Her dam, Hello Kitty Hawk, is a 2015 mare by War Bird Dog, a son of cutting’s Dual Rey, out of Buckshot Kitty, by Peppys Buckshot Bob. Bob Acre Doc lands on both the top and bottom of her papers, as the sire of Abrakadabracre and of Peppys Buckshot Bob. Shes A Bossy Rebel was bred by Laure Woods and Lexi Kastanis, and Red Arrow Ranch LLC owns her.

That horse showed up in the third round, when a steer hung its head in the head gate and left Holcomb parked in the corner far longer than he wanted.

“We sat there for a really long time,” Holcomb said. “I let go of her head and just let her stand there on a loose rein while they got her unstuck. … I knew we had a decent lead on two, so I wasn’t trying to push the barrier. I didn’t want to be that late. And then that steer kind of squirted off to the right fence pretty good too. And when it did that, I just wanted to make sure I ran over there and caught him.”

He wasn’t rattled by the wait.

“Not nervous so much. I guess I don’t really get nervous like that,” Holcomb said. “It’s more of just … try to get a focus of not making a mistake, of making the right decisions in the run and beforehand to set yourself up good.”

The finals run June 20 in Heber City.

The Million-Dollar Bonus Race

The Old West heading carries the event’s million-dollar bonus storyline, and Holcomb is in the hunt on another horse—Corona Makes Me Purr, a gelding by Cat Man Do out of Brooks Corona Gal, owned by Tres Amigos Partners, at seventh call and 11 points behind the leader. But Holcomb said the stakes won’t change how he rides the short round.

The gray sits third among the sale graduates and seventh in the Open at 667.80. Rhen Richard holds the top two graduate spots on Reys Version (670.68) and Winners Fire (668.79)—the same pair sitting fourth and fifth overall—with a third, Runnnin Winners, back in sixth, and Kaleb Driggers’ Woody To My Jessie rounds out the top four. The bonus race and the championship race, in other words, are mostly the same horses up front.

Holcomb likes the gray’s consistency — “We were 22s across the board on him,” he said — and said the money won’t change how he rides the short round.

“Ultimately for the million you have to win the class, but at the same time, you’re not going to push a horse above its level,” Holcomb said. “Knowing what your horse can perform and not pushing too hard here is going to set you up, and if the cards fall right and they’re a first-place horse, then you go for first. And if they’re a third-, fifth-place horse, that’s what you strive to go for — what that horse is capable of. … I’ve always gotten in more trouble trying to push a horse to mark higher rather than just making a good run on it and then letting them fall in where they score.”

• Reys Version — graduate leader, 4th overall (670.68). Rhen Richard.
• Winners Fire — 2nd graduate, 5th overall (668.79). Rhen Richard.
• Corona Makes Me Purr — 3rd graduate, 7th overall (667.80). Andy Holcomb.
• Woody To My Jessie — 4th graduate, 18th overall (658.13). Kaleb Driggers.

Pre-Futurity Heading Open Short Round