She’s in it to win it. Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum pulled off an astounding inside turn tonight, April 16, to win the first leg of the Rolex FEI World Cup Show Jumping Final. She and Shutterfly have won two World Cup Finals—in 2008 and 2005—and she’s going to be the one to beat again this year.
“I made a plan that I thought suited my horse,” she said. “My plan was different than 99 percent of the competition, but I know my horse well, and this gives us a great advantage. I was happy how my plan worked.”
She might have the lock on the lead, but two U.S. riders have put themselves in excellent stalking position. McLain Ward sits third on Sapphire, and Rich Fellers and Flexible—who were second in last year’s Final—are in fourth. Swiss rider Christina Liebherr is in second.
Fellers had the unenviable task of going first of the 44 riders who started tonight. He laid down a quick and crowd-pleasing trip, clean in 58.50 seconds to set the mark for everyone else to beat. Fellers negotiated both of the inside turn options that course designer Anthony D’Ambrosio offered.
The crowd gasped as the quick little Flexible almost turned out from underneath Fellers on one corner. “I’m never happy with my ride to be totally honest, but I was really happy with my horse. He was phenomenal,” Fellers said. “I missed one inside turn. That was a little dicey [when he almost went off the side]. That’s where he covers for me. I’m 50 years old this year. I need a nice young, athletic horse to make up for my mistakes.”
It didn’t take long for the lead to change hands. As sixth to go, Liebherr made short work of shaving more than a second off Fellers’ time with big jumps from her long-time partner L.B. No Mercy. “This is my first time here in Las Vegas, and it was absolutely fantastic,” she said. “My horse fought hard tonight and gave me everything. I had a completely different plan for the course tonight than Meredith. My horse doesn’t turn to the right very well, so I did the outside turns and went very fast. That suited my horse better. I hope he jumps like tonight the rest of the weekend.”
Taking Aim
Various others took concerted cracks at breaking into the top ranks. Thomas Velin rode a very slick round on Grim St. Clair, angling the fences off inside turns, to finish clean in 58.68 seconds, which would end up in fifth. Rodrigo Pessoa was well up on the time on Rufus with ruthlessly efficient turns until he dared an inside turn to the next-to-last fence, an oxer. Rufus couldn’t clear it after slipping on the tight turn, and they brought it down. He finished with the second-fastest time of the night—56.09 seconds—but the four-second penalty for the rail left them in 10th.
Steve Guerdat was the only rider other than Michaels-Beerbaum to attempt the daring inside turn to fence 5, and he posted the fastest time of the night on Tresor (55.61 seconds). A heart-breaking rail put him down into ninth.
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Then Ward cantered into the ring on Sapphire as the 35th in the order. He has made the Rolex FEI World Cup a definitive goal for Sapphire ever since winning the team gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Hong Kong. He didn’t dare all the inside turns but was as efficient as possible on all the turns. “When I went in the order, Christina had gone around to two of the options and still been so fast, so that’s why I decided to go around to fence 5,” he said. They stopped the timers clean in 57.73 seconds to slide into third place by the end of the night.
“It’s a nice Rolex watch to win, so of course I would have liked to have won tonight, but I am thrilled with her. My goal was to be in the top five; I thought top three would be nice, and here I am. We just need to tackle tomorrow now.”
Lots Of Choices
Michaels-Beerbaum praised Anthony D’Ambrosio’s course. “Anthony presented us options where we could take a short inside turn and add strides to the next fence and still be fast enough. That’s unique in course designing, and I thought it was brilliant,” she said. Her inside turn to fence 5 meant that she had to add a stride in the three-stride distance to fence 6, the Las Vegas vertical. “Shutterfly is good at adding, so I always try to add where I can,” she said.
That’s the reason Ward didn’t attempt that turn. “That inside turn wouldn’t have worked so well for me; Sapphire isn’t great at adding strides. There was more risk than reward for me on that turn,” he said.
They’ve Got To Catch Up
It’s a ways down the results for the other U.S. riders. Mandy Porter had a quick round on San Diego (57.47 seconds), but the 4 seconds added for their rail early in the course puts them in 15th. “I wanted to be fairly fast, as fast as I thought we could go at the time. I tried to ride how we normally do. There was nothing in particular [that she was concerned about.] I wondered how impressed he would be by the whole atmosphere, and he was a little more than normal. I was very pleased with him,” she said.
Christine McCrea had a slow clear round on Vegas, who looked a bit impressed by the jumps. They’re in 17th.
There’s a clump of U.S. riders in 20th, 22nd, 24th, 25th and 26th. Kent Farrington and Up Chiqui went quickly, but had a rail for 20th. The youngest rider in the competition, Hillary Dobbs, 20, added 4 to her time when Quincy B just barely rolled the front rail of the last oxer out of the cups. “It’s my first World Cup Final, and being the speed round, I just wanted a good pace,” Dobbs said. “You had to get the right pace right off the bat because the triple bar [at the first jump] was a big first jump in a direct line to another oxer. I couldn’t have asked more of him [Quincy B]. He’s never been here either, and I thought he was fantastic. I think I got to the last line a little bit early and stopped his jump a little bit, but he was super.”
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Danny Boy had a rail in a conservative round from Beezie Madden. “He’s a very young horse for this competition,” she said. “I wanted to be as smooth as I could. It started out a little rough because he jumped so high at fence 1. But it smoothed out after that. The rail he had down, I was just taking him off the ground and in the air to get direct to the next fence and distracted him a little bit. All in all I thought he was good.” They’re in 24th.
World Cup veteran Richard Spooner had a very quick time, but the two rails Ace dropped put him back into 25th place. “I was very happy with Ace in the beginning. He had a little bit of bad luck in the triple and had that one down real light,” Spooner said. “I had the time I needed, really. I would have been in the top three or four with that time. But it wasn’t meant to be. I’m going to do Cristallo tomorrow. This pretty much puts me out of the running for the top 10. There’s still great money in each class. I’ll show Cristallo and hope for the best.”
World Cup rookie Ashlee Bond is in 26th with Cadett 7 with a rail on a conservative go. “I was a little bit nervous but not too bad,” she said. “I just focused on the job at hand. It went pretty according to plan. He was a little more backed off than I expected, and I was having to kick him up more, but that was fine. He felt really great. I was really happy.”
In her first World Cup Final, Michelle Spadone is in 32nd on Melisimo after a rail and a slower round. “I was a little bit nervous, but my horse is really good,” Spadone said. “I wish I could have done a couple things better, a little bit faster, but she was a good girl. Everything went according to plan except for the first line. I didn’t catch the first jump that I wanted, so I ended up adding a stride. I did seven instead of six, and in hindsight, after I did the seven, I still could have done the six. She tried hard and she was good.”
Todd Minikus and Danielle Torano round out the field of U.S. riders in 34th and 35th after they each had two rails.
Molly Sorge
