 It all starts out pretty innocently. Just a horse to piddle around with. Next
thing you know it’s a few of your horsy friends mentioning a cattle practice or
seminar at whatshisname's arena on Saturday afternoon, and quicker than you can say
National Cutting Horse Association, you're hooked.
Cutters Sharon Ivie and Toni Francisco of
Morgan Hill, California are both quick to point out that many of the local club cutters in
California, found their way to the regional club shows through friends that were going to
give cutting a try. So many of these same people and their horses have gone on to become
some of today’s brightest stars on the NCHA circuit.
Sharon admits to a life long passion for
working cattle on a great horse. For many years she had been hauling her horses’
considerable miles and had spent a hefty sum in the pursuit of cattle.
"One day the thought occurred to me that
there must be many people just like me, that would love to have a regional club that could
hold shows with fresh cattle at a reasonable price and we wouldn’t have to drive all
over creation to find them.’
 A regional Appaloosa Breed show was scheduled to
be held the following weekend at Sundin’s Arena, a facility located in Morgan Hill. I
knew that they had planned on featuring some open, all breed, cutting classes so I had
gone ahead and sent in my entries. I felt fairly confident that this show would give me an
opportunity to poll the cutters who showed up, and to see just how many of these cutters
might actually be interested in becoming members of a local cutting club.’
‘As it turned out the breed shows open
cutting classes where larger than the actual breed show itself! Everyone seemed excited
about the prospect of having cuttings so close to home. Some of the comments I heard
really inspired me to go forward with the organization of Gabilan Cutters" recalls
Sharon.
Sharon concedes that she does makes it sound
pretty simple but in reality running a club like this was like building a full time job
for herself. "The actual organization of shows, finding the show grounds, locating
fresh cattle, and finding the many qualified helpers needed to actually run the show and
take care of the cattle can be a gut wrenching experience to say the least", laughed
Sharon. She admits that having some pretty good help that were as ‘cow addicted’
as she was, certainly helped to make this local cutting club the great success story it
turned out to be.
Another Gabilan member who followed the cows
with a passion was Toni Francisco. Having acquired her first cutting horse and becoming a
member of Gabilan Cutters in 1993, everything just seemed to fall into place for Toni as
she soon found herself elected to the board of directors. Half way through ’95, Toni
was presented the president’s gavel and also became largely responsible for the all
the details of organizing the club’s shows.
Toni related that as a Gabilan board member,
everyone had certain tasks that they would be responsible for. "At the time I became
a board member I got real involved in finding cattle for practices. Then when I ended up
President, I felt I needed control over the grounds, the judges, and the cattle to a
point; even the weather is such a huge factor. It’s a lot like having a baby. You end
up worrying over everything like costs, hay for the cattle, a standby show secretary,
counting cattle off and then back on the trucks. It is unending, but mostly you need to
plan way ahead of the show. Attention to detail becomes so important to me because if the
cutters don’t enjoy the show they won’t be back."
 Toni continued to run the Gabilan shows until 1998 when fellow club cutter,
Barb Stone approached Toni about helping her run the coming September, Santa Cruz Country
Fair cuttings in Watsonville, California.
Barb too, had a lot of practical experience
as she had been running the fair cuttings for several years. With the combined experience
of these two show host veterans, they began to feel pretty confident about putting
together a show of their own. Jointly they became known as TLC Cuttings.
Under the pairs TLC moniker, they christened
their NCHA approved shows, ‘Cutting on the Coast’. It wasn’t long until
Toni and Barb’s TLC’s Cuttings, built a reputation for putting on a class show
and became a much-talked about event for cutters and sponsors in and outside of the
Northern California area.
The past two show seasons at the Watsonville
grounds have presented their own set of ‘up jumps the devil’ type surprises, for
the ever vigilant Toni and Barb. At the 1999 show the practice pen was across the creek,
behind the show arena. The only way to get the cattle to the practice pen was to cross the
creek. As fate would have it, the creek was not accessible, having washed out in a recent
rain deluge. They were left with just two options; #1 call off the cutting OR #2 they
could build a bridge.
The core of Army Engineers would have blushed
at their bull dog tenacity, as this group of cutters assembled a makeshift bridge out of
an old iron stairwell and some supports that were put together out of materials on hand.
"To this day that bridge is still in use at the fairgrounds and just as sturdy as the
day we put it together" relates a beaming Toni.
‘As a matter of fact back in ’99, I
remember Barb calling me from the showgrounds as the trucks were hauling in the sand for
the arena. She kept telling me the sand was blue and it just didn’t look right. I
finally got hold of the supplier and they assured us it was perfectly good sand. But Barb
just wouldn’t let it die. Finally I went over to the grounds along with the supplier
and found that this is the type of sand that, if dampened and left to dry overnight, would
form a surface as hard as concrete. We had all the ‘blue’ sand scraped up and
hauled off and replaced with the proper footing."
That’s probably one of the many reasons
the pair saw fit to reject this years arena sand 3 times until they found the quarry that
had supplied what turned out to be the perfect sand footing at the ’99 cutting.
 The 2000 Santa Cruz Fair Cutting was not without its unexpected drama. Just
as the first set, of the first class of the day had finished up, what sounded like a
string of Chinese firecrackers started to crackle and pop. The noise continued to get
louder and louder until everyone realized that one of the very ancient looking trees along
the backside of the arena was splitting right down the middle. The tree toppled power
lines into the cutting arena. Again, Toni was on the spot and had all the cutters and
cattle evacuated from the arena. In short order, she had a call placed to the power
company who amazingly showed up almost immediately, and had the power lines back up on the
poles with a mere 2 hour delay to the cutting.
Both the Cutting on the Coast and fair events
ended their 2000 runs with double the entries of the ’99 shows. Again, Toni and Barb
feel the unblinking attention to detail is what makes their shows such popular NCHA
cutting events in California.
TLC's next ‘Cutting on the
Coast’ show will be held at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville,
California June 1-3,2001, and don’t forget the Santa Cruz County Fair Cutting on
September 11th, 2001. For more information on TLC events or Gabilan Cutters Inc., phone
(408) 779-0655 |
