Daniel Reed on 5-year-old Probably Smart N Nu, owned by Chris Sutton, won the Open Heeling at the American Rope Horse Futurity Association’s Sun Circuit against 103 entries, with a score of 915.17 on four–edging Jeremy Buhler’s 911 on Stump Lake Ranch’s SLR Swinging Hickory.
“Smarty” also won the first round with a 230.71-point score worth $1,000. Sutton’s bay had finished in the top 10 last October at the ARHFA World Championship in both the 4-year-old Incentive and Open heeling. Reed fell into training “Smarty” when his Ada neighbor, Sutton, thought he should check him out.
“I put him off, because I didn’t want a 3-year-old,” recalled Reed, 35. “But I went ahead, and he was super easy. I had a top-five callback at the Riata Buckle on him when he was 3, and we broke a barrier to win it.”
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Reed, a 9 heeler, also won the TX Best in Glen Rose, Texas on Smarty.
“He’s just so quiet, everything he does is effortless,” said Reed. “Whether it’s the first steer of the 50th, he’ll stand there and never move. He has a big stop and once it’s on the saddle horn, he will not wiggle.”
Reed placed 8th also, on the only other horse he brought to Scottsdale (Kirk Hostetler’s Josey Walez), to bring his Sun Circuit haul to $15,000. Buhler took home a respectable $13,500 for second on SLR Swinging Hickory and for fifth on Pride And Joyy.
