“Oh great, he brought that old mare again.”

It’s a frequent comment from 10-year-old Ryker Sarchett’s competitors in the Queen Creek (Arizona) Junior Rodeo Association over the past couple of years. It happens every time his parents, Nick and Jody Sarchett, unload the dark brown mare who has been winning for more than 20 straight years.

And while her sheer ability to win at basically any event makes her stand out, the legacy of the perpetually gorgeous Chuckkars Chick is that she has done it for riders of all ages.

“Chick” was just 4 when Carl and Nancy Petersen bought her from Wyoming’s Junior Johnstone, a good cowboy. The mare was only 6 when Carl won a saddle on her, heeling at a United States Team Roping Championships event. Twenty-two years later, she’s winning saddles for his grandson, Ryker. In fact, in Ryker’s association last year on Chick, he won the all-around, team roping, steer stopping, breakaway roping and goat tying.

“Jody had her in the late 1990s when the mare was young, at Vernon College in Texas and later at Tarleton State University in Stephenville,” says Nick, an AQHA world champion and Wrangler National Finals Rodeo heeler.

Partnered with Nick, Jody bought her PRCA card and the pair – with the help of Chick – placed at the pro rodeo in Dillon, Montana, in team roping. Like Jody, Nancy headed on the mare at big team roping events. In fact, she was heading on Chick at the USTRC’s National Finals of Team Roping in Oklahoma City one year when the USTRC’s Ken Bray called to see if she’d heel for Sonny Gould, whose partner had gotten hurt. Her horse looked the part.

“I hadn’t been heeling much,” Nancy says. “But I’ll be darned if we didn’t win that roping. That mare would make you think you were a horse trainer.”

When Jody and Nick began dating in 2000, he borrowed Chick and heeled his way to second place at La Fiesta de los Vaqueros in Tucson – one of the richest professional rodeos of the year. He also chose to ride her at the prestigious Bob Feist Invitational, the world’s richest pro team roping in Reno, Nevada.

“She never, ever, ever was in the wrong place,” Nick says. “She was in the right place at the right time, always. She was just one of those special horses – it was unbelievable how she could read things so well.”

In fact, her ability to read cattle is what Nancy thinks makes her stand out so much.

“On some horses, you’d get pretty nervous if a steer cut in front of you to the left, but she loved that – she’d read it,” Nancy says. “And in heeling, she’d adjust to whatever you needed done and could step up for NFR heelers.”

Chick is stout-made with a short neck, and Nick said what made her one of his all-time favorites was the fact that she never hampered his throw by being out of position. The mare likely got her power and good mind from her sire, Lowry Star, a stallion who stood in Wyoming for years. He was by Lowry Hancock Jr – a grandson of Roan Hancock by Joe Hancock – and out of Pretty Mandy, a double-bred Goober mare out of a dam that also went back to American Quarter Horse Hall of Famer Zantanon. Goober was by a son of F&H Bill Thomas, who was also the grandsire of the dam of Decketta – one of the greatest racing mares in American history. Lowry Star also goes back on both sides to the Appendix stallion Norfleet.

Chick got a dose of speed on the bottom side of her pedigree, as well, from her dam’s magic Leo-Sugar Bars cross. Chuckkar 44 was by a stallion named Rip Rip, out of a mare that went back to Three Bars (TB) and Bear Hug on top, with a bit more Hancock on her bottom side.

Despite nearly amputating her foot in some wire as a 2-year-old, Chick has never been unsound. She looks 18, not 28. Phenomenal proportions in her conformation and an enormous hind end make people take notice.

“We baby her,” Jody says. “We make sure she’s in Montana by May and down here in Arizona by November. We’ve never injected her joints or anything; she just gets an occasional (anti-inflammatory) if she’s competing on hard ground. She went barefoot for years until recently. She’s just an amazing specimen. No puffs, bumps, nothing.”

Not only that, but the Petersens have always run her with their geldings, because she never causes problems due to hormones.

“She always wanted to please and do whatever you asked her to do,” Nancy says. “Ryker was little when he asked her to barrel race and pole bend, and she just did it. She does whatever you want.”

If Chick takes after any of her forebears, it’s evident which one, considering the 1955 advertisement for a breeding to Lowry Hancock in The Quarter Horse Journal. Of Chick’s great-grandsire, the ad boasted, “You name it – he’ll do it.”

In fact, ProRodeo Hall of Fame steer ropers Shoat Webster and Everett Shaw both rode sons of Roan Hancock to their titles. The maternal grandmother of one of America’s most versatile stallions – the Hall of Famer Two Eyed Jack – was a daughter of Roan Hancock. Ultimately, Joe Hancock was called the “original” Quarter Horse versatility sire.

“I think the Lowry Star horses just always try hard and have good minds,” Carl says. “We’ve had several, and they don’t have the ‘Hancock buck’ in them. I don’t think she ever humped a day in her life. We just went to using her.”

Nick, who has ridden some of the best horses in the business, is a fan of the line, too.

“I rode one other Lowry Star horse owned by Jack Kent, and he was similar,” Nick says. “I almost heeled on him at Cheyenne Frontier Days. He was built the same way, absolutely bomb-proof and dog gentle, could run, was real stout – you could do everything on him.”

Still sound and going strong at 28, Chick isn’t done packing the third generation of the family. Ryker was just 5 and visiting his grandparents in Montana when he took his first ride aboard Chick. His parents didn’t want it to happen. Nick and Jody thought the mare would be too much horse for the little boy. But Nancy knew Chick better than anybody after two-plus decades. She paired the boy and mare one day in the 600-acre pasture across from their place outside Three Forks, Montana. When his parents in Arizona heard the news, they had a fit.

“He’d only been on a pony before that,” Nancy says. “But ponies are hard to learn anything on. Starting out on a horse like her improved his horsemanship so much. She’s so broke.”

Indeed. But Chick had always loved kids. Before the Petersens had grandkids, they’d let other little kids ride her around bareback, even when she was young.

“It’s amazing how she changes her energy level for the caliber rider and the situation,” Jody says.

“Not one time was she ever too much for Ryker,” Nick says. “It has been crazy how she adapted to him. The better he started riding and the faster he wanted to go, the faster she’d go.”

The extended family has raised three foals out of Chick, sired by running-bred stallions. One baby battled appendicitis and became a donation to a church riding club, and another was tapped by Nick to ride at the George Strait Team Roping Classic and the BFI, where he placed.

The third horse is still owned by the family, a mare out of Chick by a Jess Perry stallion. Nine-year-old That Chicsa Topperry, aka “Stella,” will become Ryker’s tie-down roping horse. According to Nick, the two mares are “scary similar,” from their conformation to their demeanor.

It’s not good news for Ryker’s competition in the junior rodeos. But no matter how much Ryker wins on the daughter, she can never supersede the soft spot in his heart for “the old mare.”

“She’s amazing,” Ryker says. “She’s the best horse I’ve ever seen, ever had. She knows what to do so much! I’ve done every single event on her. She just knows how to do everything; she’s so smart.”

One package that’s athletic, good-minded, sound and kid-friendly? Solid gold.