Growing up in a family of dedicated cutting riders means teenager Imogen Randell was born to become a champion.

Sitting high in her lucky saddle, a young cutting rider takes a deep and determined breath. Her horse is warm beneath her, and just as focused. The sounds and smells of the skittish cattle emanate, while the trusty turnbacks hover, claiming their corners. Right now the arena belongs to 17-year-old Imogen Randell. “You’re just in the moment,” Imogen says. “There’s always music playing in the background but I can never hear it — you’re not thinking about anything else.”

Cutting riding runs in the blood of the Randell family, who run 243-hectare cattle farm ‘Lagoona’ in north eastern Victoria’s Lurg, just outside Benalla on Yorta Yorta Country. Imogen’s dad Troy, 49, is a professional horse trainer, and until recently was the president of the Australian National Cutting Horse Association. Meanwhile Imogen’s mum Zannie, 49, and younger brother Lachlan, 15, are also dedicated to the sport.

The main goal of cutting riding is to demonstrate the skill of both rider and horse in separating a single steer from a herd. Competitors have just two-and-a-half minutes to show a panel of judges what they can do. Imogen spends time calming the quivering butterflies in her stomach in the loping pen as she warms up her horse before each intense run. “When I’m nervous I know I do badly,” she says, “so I just have to not be nervous!” 

She has a few tricks that help. “I always try and use the same saddle, and I don’t like showing in a different bridle, and I used to always show in the same outfit – a lucky white shirt.” Nowadays the colour of her shirt may vary, but she always pairs it with “nice jeans” and the regulatory wide-brimmed hat.

Since starting her competition career at the age of eight, Imogen has made waves in the highly competitive youth categories of a slate of national cutting shows. She achieved the overall highest score – an incredible 227 points – in the 2023 NCHA Futurity, topping even the professional adult riders. “That year Imogen came first in almost every event she rode in,” mum Zannie says proudly. 

In 2024 Imogen was one of just four young Australian riders invited to compete in the US, in the cutting section of the National High School Finals Rodeo, a huge event that features more than 1500 student riders annually, and has become known as “the world’s largest rodeo”. Imogen admits she was “a bit nervous” heading to Wyoming to compete. It was not only her first international show, but also her very first trip overseas. As a kid from country Victoria in the original home of cutting, Imogen was chuffed to earn an overall place just shy of the finals. “It was an amazing opportunity… I had the time of my life over there.” She returned home to claim the 2024 NCHA National Finals Senior Youth Champion title, awarded to her for topping the national finals with a score of 227.5.

When Graziher speaks to Imogen and her family, they’re in the thick of the 2025 Victorian Cutting Futurity in Locksley, where the teenager says she’s exhausted from warming up horses and helping out around the stables, and she hasn’t even competed yet. But she wouldn’t have it any other way. “I don’t like sitting down and doing nothing,” she says, and it seems like an understatement. Imogen juggles cutting riding with boarding school in Melbourne, as well as responsibilities on the home farm, where her flair for horses began.  Dad Troy says his daughter is “a natural” at cutting riding, and mum Zannie points out that it’s hardly surprising: “There’s a photo of Troy holding Imogen on a horse, she would have not been home long from the hospital,” Zannie says.

While Imogen’s success has put her in the spotlight, she’d rather not be the centre of attention. “I don’t really talk about it much at school,” she says. But she certainly likes to win. “It feels good, I like winning – I just don’t like going up and getting your ribbon and getting your photo taken,” she explains. “When people say ‘well done’, I don’t really know what to say.”

When asked about her favourite aspect of cutting riding, her answer is clear-cut: “My horse, Hottie.” Hottie is the paddock name of the Randell family’s champion chestnut mare, a 14.3-hand, 14-year-old Quarter Horse known in the arena as Spin N Metallic. “She’s exceptionally talented,” Imogen says. “She knows where she needs to be… so, she kind of taught me.” 

This year Imogen’s had to start sharing Hottie with younger brother Lachlan, whose star is on the rise. “I want to go to America, like Imogen did,” Lachlan says. Their parents are thrilled with the kids’ success, though Troy isn’t one to gush. “Yeah I probably don’t tell them enough, but I am [proud],” Troy says. “I get a lot of joy out of seeing the kids do well.” Zannie is more forthcoming. “I’m incredibly proud,” she says, extending the praise to the sport itself. “Cutting definitely instills in the kids a work ethic and a sense of competitiveness... It’s one of those sports that you’re probably never going to stop learning in.”

Imogen says cutting riding will always be part of her life, and hopes her dad will train her horses “forever and ever and ever”. When she finishes high school she’ll take a year off before heading to uni, but she’s not entirely sure what the future holds. “I’ll just see where the wind takes me.”