There wasn’t much Eric Flameng could do.  He was due to go first in a seven-horse jump-off for the $50,000 Rolex/USEF National Show Jumping Championship CSI-W tonight, Dec. 1, at the National Horse Show in Wellington, Fla.  And the line-up included speedsters Todd Minikus, McLain Ward, and Candice King.

Flameng guided Roxanne to a steady, but clear round, stopping the timers in 37.92 seconds.  “It’s hard to go first—no one likes that,” said Flameng.  “She’s not a particularly fast mare, so I just tried to do what was possible for me to do.”

The strategy paid off in spades, as no other rider and horse could chalk up a clear round, and Flameng ended up leading the victory gallop in his biggest win to date. The Belgian rider is now based in Florida, and has become a familiar face at the Winter Equestrian Festival.  Interestingly enough, the top four finishers in the class—Roxanne, Sapphire, Olinda, and Mario Deslauriers’ Naomi—were mares.

“I know Eric is a very smart rider.  He put in a solid, efficient round, and put the pressure on the rest of us.  And we all folded a bit,” said McLain Ward, who finished second on his Olympic and World Championship mount, Sapphire.  Ward had the fastest time of the night, but fell victim to the bogey fence of the jump-off, 4C.

Riders had to start the jump-off over a vertical, then negotiate a tight rollback turn to 4BC, a vertical-oxer one-stride left over from the original course’s triple combination.  Shaving the turn to the combination saved the riders time, but horse after horse caught the back rail of 4C on the way out as a result.  Ward and Sapphire did just that. 

Todd Minikus had to settle for third as a result of the very same rail aboard the talented young mare Olinda.  “She just started showing in grand prix classes in August.  She’s been very competitive, but she’s still very green as far at this level of competition,” Minikus said.  “I think I cheated Olinda out of a win.  In a couple of the jump-offs she’s been in, she’s been aggressive into combinations, so I was trying to protect the front rail jumping in, and it backfired when she had the back rail down coming out.”

With the second-place points for this class, Ward has probably confirmed his place in the FEI Rolex Show Jumping World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, Nev., next April.  He plans to give Sapphire a long vacation and start showing her again late in the Winter Equestrian Festival to get ready.  Minikus is further down the standings, but “I think she’s a very quality mare,” he said of Olinda.  “I think she deserves to go to the World Cup, so I’m going to try and get her there.

Flameng, overjoyed with his victory tonight, was dancing in his chair as he described his win.  He hasn’t done the math on how he—a Belgian national—might stand in World Cup points, so he wasn’t plotting a trip to Vegas just yet.

This class, a World Cup-qualifier in its own right, was actually just Round 1 of the Rolex/USEF National Show Jumping Championship.  Round 2 will go on Sunday afternoon, and all the riders will return on the same mounts to go head to head again.  And check in tomorrow for coverage of both the open and the amateur-owner/junior hunter championship classes.

$50,000 Rolex/USEF National Show Jumping Championship
1. Roxanne/Eric Flameng            0-0/37.92
2. Sapphire/McLain Ward            0-4/35.30
3. Olinda/Todd Minikus            0-4/35.47
4. Naomi/Mario Deslauriers            0-4/37.65
5. Caliskan/Candice King            0-4/37.95
6. BCO Olymp/Eliza Shuford            0-8/36.96
7. Picolien Zeldenrust/Frankie Chesler-Ortiz    0-19/46.94
33 horses competed.