As hard as it is to fathom, Tag Rice actually thought about not bringing the hottest horse in cutting to Augusta.

Tag Rice and Chiquita Pistol work a cow during the 4-year-old Open Division. Steve Norman

"I wasn't even coming," he said. "But after I did so good at Abilene, everybody kind of talked me into it. You better show a good horse while you got her, they said. So that's what we did. We're in Augusta."

In the first go-round of the Futurity Open Monday, Rice and Chiquita Pistol marked a 215.5 in the last draw of a 13-horse set and advanced to the second round.

On Cat N Colonel, Brad Mitchell, of Franklin, Tenn., won the go-round with a 221 in the 24th annual Augusta Futurity at the Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center on Monday.

The top 67 horses with a score of 212 or better advanced to the second go-round, which begins 8 a.m. Friday.

Rice and Chiquita Pistol, a mare by Smart Little Pistol out of Miss Chiquita Tari, have had a tremendous past two months. In December, the pair rung up a 225 to win the NCHA Futurity open finals and a $200,000 check. This after Rice placed second behind his father, Ronnie, in the 2001 NCHA Futurity open finals.

"There's nothing in cutting you can do better than winning the Futurity," the 28-year-old Rice, who's already surpassed $1 million in career earnings on the National Cutting Horse Association circuit. "That's everybody's goal. It's just kind of a special deal."

If winning that show wasn't enough, Rice and Chiquita Pistol then marked a 231 to win the open finals of the Abilene Spectacular earlier this month. Rice tied Matt Gaines' 2001 NCHA Super Stakes score for the second-best score in NCHA Futurity history. Lindy Burch holds the record with a 233 on Bet Yer Blue Boons in the NCHA World Championship Finals in 1999.

"That was fun there," Rice said of his score. "That Futurity deal, that's the one we stress on. We just had a good time at Abilene."

In his second trip to Augusta, Rice, who said he's been showing cutting horses since he was little, had a troublesome run that he and Chiquita Pistol somehow managed to keep together. They cut two cows that nearly escaped back to the herd.

"With that draw, there's not a whole lot of cattle in there that you like left," Rice said. "I was just fortunate to survive. The first cow I cut wasn't very good at all. The second one was pretty tough, too."

Mitchell, a horse trainer for Barbara and Kix Brooks for four years, didn't have an easy run, either. The first cow he picked out to cut got away from him.

"I ended up with the black cow and we worked it and worked it, and it just kept testing us and testing us," he said. "It wouldn't turn away, and I was thinking to myself that I let get away the one that we wanted and here I'm going to end up losing this one. Finally, it turned away. We went back and cut a great second cow and took it to the buzzer."

Reach Chris Gay at (706) 868-1222, Ext. 114.