Bulletin staff report

Phil Hanson Jr., a Prineville horse trainer, will be inducted into the National Cutting Horse Association Riders Hall of Fame on Dec. 12 in Fort Worth, Texas.

To be inducted into the Riders Hall of Fame, a competitor must have earned more than $1 million in open competition. In his nearly 20-year career, Hanson has won approximately $1.1 million, he said.

The induction ceremony will take place during the NCHA World Championship Futurity, slated for Nov. 24 through Dec. 12 at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth.

”It is very exciting,” Hanson said. ”It’s a goal I set quite a few years ago and it’s taken a lot of time and work to get there.”

Hanson, 43, is a 1979 graduate of Redmond High School. He has been riding and competing horses since he was just a child, growing up on his parents’ 160-acre Tumalo ranch. He earned an architectural drafting and design degree from Phoenix Institute of Technology before becoming a full-time horse trainer. He and his wife of 22 years, Leah, own and operate Hanson’s Cutting Horses from their 100-acre Prineville ranch.

During his career, Hanson has been a Pacific Coast Cutting Horse Association Futurity finalist nearly every year since 1984 and has trained a number of top-level competitive cutting horses.

Hanson is the first Oregonian to be inducted into the NCHA Riders Hall of Fame and is among a handful of Northwest hall of fame members. He said that far from being a career-capping event, his induction has spurred him to keep competing.

”I hope the next million comes a lot faster,” Hanson said with a laugh.

Hanson’s wife will join him at the induction ceremony. She also plans to compete in the futurity with the couple’s 3-year-old quarter-horse gelding, Little Moony Tunes. The couple two children – Jake, 20, and Megan, 18 – will not attend due to school obligations, but Hanson said he’s hopeful that his parents, Phil and Ruth, and Leah’s parents, Orville and Loretta Ulledahl, can attend.