our sports: CUTTING
Cutting For
a Cause
NOVEMBER 2015
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
BY MELISSA MOORMAN
PHOTOS BY STEVE SCHILLIO
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This is the 21st anniversary of the Careity
Foundation’s Celebrity Cutting and concert,
an event that brings celebrities each year
from various walks of life to compete at Will
Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth.
This year’s event is December 4 beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are available on the
group’s website at www.careity.org and
they range from $20 per person for general
admission to the cutting competition to $200
for a box seat ticket to the Celebrity Cutting
and the concert afterwards.
Celebrities who will be competing in this
year’s event include Country Music stars
Chad Prather, Tanya Tucker, Lyle Lovett,
Sonny Burgess, Trent Willmon, Clay Walker
and “Country Top 40” host Bob Kingsley.
Sports stars who are competing include
former Dallas Cowboy star Jay Novacek.
Physicians, artists, media personalities and
others will be on hand to try the fast-growing
sport of cutting. Other celebrities who will
compete include renowned breast surgeon
Amy Gunter, who has won the competition
before, as well as veteran Dan Nevins who
rides with two prosthetic legs. The competitors are placed into teams and the winning
team receives a trophy and buckles. “The
buckles are coveted,” Careity co-founder
Beverly Branch said.
The event began more than two decades
ago through Branch and Walsh’s relationship with the National Cutting Horse
Association. They get all of the musical stars
to volunteer their time and the coliseum
rental is donated by NCHA, so most all of the
dollars raised during the event go to patient
care. “It’s highly unusual that a charity
would have all the venues and participants
at no cost. Not for this quality of event,” Lyn
Walsh said.
Many of the celebrity riders train in
Parker County at Mowery Cutting Horses
with owners Rick and Shelly Mowery. Shelly
Mowery has won the competition twice and
has been involved almost from the beginning
of the Celebrity Cutting, while her husband
Rick helps by training the competitors and
getting them ready for the event. Some of the
riders who trained at their facility this year
and in years past include Lyle Lovett, Tanya
Tucker, Linda Blair, Christie Brinkley, Barry
Corbin, Sonny Burgess as well as Fort Worth
Mayor Betsy Price, former mayors and Kay
Granger. They provide the cutting horses
for many of the competitors as well as help
them with training at no cost to give back to
Careity. “We’re pretty competitive, we get
them going,” Shelly Mowery said. “Some
are riders to begin with, some know how
to ride, and others have never ridden. We
bring those people in who don’t have cutting
horses so they are able to ride. We make
sure they are safe and have a good time,” she
said. Those that have never ridden may show
up months ahead of time to begin their training with Rick. “It’s about making them feel
comfortable and confident. Rick never puts
any pressure on them,” she said, adding that
the biggest reward to the event’s participants
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