Boyd Rice

Money Won

Titles/Finals

• 2014 Worlds Greatest Horseman
  
• 2014 Mercuria NCHA World Finals Champion
  
• 2013 Worlds Greatest Horseman Reserve Champion
  
• 2009 NCHA Open Super Stakes Champion
  
• 2009 NCHA Open Summer Spectacular Champion
  
• 2007 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion
  

Top Three Horses Trained

• Oh Cay N Short
  
• CR Sun Reys
  
• Third Cutting

Boyd Rice has amassed earnings in excess of $6.2 million in the Western performance horse industry. Well respected professionally and personally, his successes have come from natural talent, hard work and family support.

Accomplished professionals surrounded Boyd as he grew up within the Rice family. His father, Sonny, uncles Raymond and Ronnie, along with his cousin, Tag, and brother, Matlock, all earn a living as cutting horse trainers. With all that genetic background in ‘show biz,’ one might deduce Boyd’s career was a given. Not so – it took a lot of sweat and elbow grease.

In 1970, at the age of 5, Rice moved from Kansas to Brenham, Texas, with his father and mother, Gloria. The family moved around the Lone Star state as Sonny trained for a variety of owners.

Boyd was about 7 when began showing in youth cutting contests. Growing up he admired the way his father handled a horse, and recalls he was really the only coach he had as a youngster.

“I rode with him every day until I left there when I was about 21,” Rice said of his father. “I learned a lot from him; he could make horses get around there pretty good. When you’re young you don’t learn what you could have. I can see looking back that I could have learned a lot more. It takes years and years of experience to get the feel, to get to being a trainer.”

During a National High School Rodeo Finals in Douglas, Wyoming, Rice met Halee Reed. In 1983, just one week after high school graduation, he married his ranch-raised cowgirl and went to work for his dad in Corsicana, Texas.

The following year, Halee’s parents, A.D. and Sharon Reed located property near their cattle ranch in Spearman, Texas. Boyd was anxious to get out on his own and made the move planning to operate a public training stable there. He soon discovered the Texas Panhandle was not exactly cutting horse central.

Rice spent 15 years mixing ranch work with starting colts and showing a few cutting horses. His reputation for sending home well-broke 2-year-olds steadily grew. As the horses he was turning out found success in the show pen, the quality of the colts entrusted to him improved equitably.

By 1998, Spearman didn’t seem so far from Fort Worth, the nucleus of the NCHA. Bolstered by talent, aplomb and continued dedication, Boyd’s career shifted gears as he began showing more, better horses and now Boyd and Halee train for the public out of Weatherford Tx.