Senior Chief SEAL Scott Allcorn proved 2025’s victory at the NCHA Special Operations Cutting Challenge was no mistake, repeating the win during the Summer Spectacular with his family in the audience.
“Last year it was, ‘Don’t fall off,'” Allcorn said. “This year was, ‘Now it’s time to prove that last year wasn’t just like a fluke.'”
Allcorn, a nearly 20-year Navy SEAL currently serving out of an East Coast-based SEAL team, marked a 226 aboard gelding Royalty Smart, owned by Windy Pass.
The NCHA Special Operations Cutting Challenge is a three-day event that pairs former and current special operations service members with NCHA trainers, then puts them in the show pen.
Coming off the win, Allcorn credits a clear head as much as anything technical.
“Once I get on the horse, everything just melts away, and I’m able to fully hone in,” Allcorn said. “Go out there, look at the cow, cut the right ones and get the horse in the right position.”
A Friendship Years in the Making
Allcorn’s ties to the Special Operations Cutting Challenge trace back 7 years, before the event existed in its current form. In 2019, on a training trip through the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Allcorn struck up a conversation with a local SWAT officer about his lifelong passion for horses. One introduction led to another, and Allcorn found himself riding at Clint Allen’s place trainers Matt Miller and Tarin Rice.
The rest was history.
Allcorn and Miller stayed in touch for years. What kept the friendship going, according to Allcorn, was similarities he recognized between the cutters and his own SEAL team.
“That crew was similar [to what I knew,] the way those guys interacted with each other,” Allcorn said. “A lot of guys get out of the military and they don’t have a tribe, something to maintain their sense of purpose, drive and people to motivate them.”
That sense of purpose is baked into the Challenge itself. Miller had talked about getting Allcorn out for a similar informal event even before it became the NCHA Special Operations Cutting Challenge, which was created to give former and current service members a therapeutic outlet.
According to NCHA Executive Director Jay Winborn, the event has become a genuine alternative healing path for veterans, one Special Forces Foundation Executive Director Ignacio Garza has described in a 2024 article as something that “Kind of reminds us of combat,” for the immediacy and risk involved. Several past participants have since bought their own cutting horses and gone on to compete on their own.
What Cutters and the SEALs Have in Common
Allcorn is quick to point to his SEAL background as part of what makes the transition to cutting horses click.
“SEALs are jack of all trades,” Allcorn said. “We have to learn so many different things and be pretty good at them. We usually pick up things pretty fast, and if we’re going to do something, we want to be good at it.”
He’s seen it play out with other service members who come through the Challenge with zero riding experience.
“I think Matt Swann this year, he’d never ridden a horse before, and he went out there and he looked great,” Allcorn said. “I think it’s just a testament to special operations on the whole; a different kind of breed, different motivation level to be the best at whatever it is that you’re going to do.”
Allcorn’s own history with horses runs deeper than the military connection, too. Allcorn rode as a kid, stepped away during much of his career, and found his way back roughly a decade ago even while stationed near Virginia Beach, where Western riders are hard to come by.
Settling in Weatherford
Allcorn and his family has since relocated to Weatherford, Texas.—the cutting horse capital of the world. The move has him thinking beyond competing in the challenge.
“I think I have one more year of elligibilty in the challenge, but I don’t know how it’s going to shake out for next year [if I show elsewhere],” Allcorn said. “But I’m sure I’ll be involved in some way or another.”
Whatever 2027 holds, Allcorn made sure to spread the credit for this years’ victory around: Miller, Rice, the rest of the turnback crew; his parents; and his wife, Lauren and his three kids, Mia, Hannah, and Wade.