“He kind of stays the same—what you see is what you get,” Cheyanne McCartney said.
Teddy helped Good win $306 and Hancock $3,422 at the first stop of the California Run.
It’s part of a growing pattern, with the gelding also winning money with riders like Timber Allenbrand, who cashed on him at Greeley during the 2025 season.
“I just think he’s gotten more solid,” McCartney said. “The more they do it, the better they get at it.”
Teddy was started by Cody McCartney, sold as a young horse and later bought back at the start of his 5-year-old year. From there, he developed into a standout in both the breakaway and the tie-down, with both McCartneys seeing success on him.
Cheyanne, Cody McCartney’s CR Tuff King Clears $73K at Gold Buckle Futurity in 2 Events
After a run at Cheyenne Frontier Days—one of the tougher setups a young horse can see—she came away convinced.
“I had a feeling that he was going to be a special horse,” she said. “That was a tough setting for a young horse.”
Now, fully transitioned into a rodeo horse, he’s continued to handle one of the biggest challenges for young horses: adapting to different setups without preparation.
“He’s been able to go from setup to setup without practice and handle it really well,” McCartney said. “That’s one of the hardest things when you take a young horse and start rodeoing.”
That ability carries across events, too.
Whether he’s in the breakaway or tie-down, McCartney says he feels the same—another reason he’s been effective for multiple riders.
“He has the same tendencies… the way he runs, the way he stops—it’s all pretty much the same,” she said.
In a sport where most horses lean toward one discipline, CR Tuff King continues to prove he can do both.
