Ocala, Fla.—Feb. 27

Larry Glefke has inspired a new generation of whoopers.

His legendary whoops reverberated throughout the Ocala Horse Properties Stadium at HITS Post Time Farm, so often that a small group of young horse fans who’d congregated on the berms surrounding the arena began anticipating it as soon as Kelley Farmer landed off the final oxer. And they whooped and hollered alongside in grand fashion.

Glefke had a lot of things to whoop about. Farmer brought eight of the 41 entries to the class and advanced seven of those to the handy round. By time the sun had set, she’d emerged a clear victor of the $100,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby with her experienced derby partner Mindful. This win became Farmer’s 63rd victory since the program was begun a decade ago.

“What a horse! They all—I can’t say enough about my group of horses today. Wow.” she said taking a breath. “I’m a little bit speechless, which is not normal.’ I’ve got a hell of a group of horses and a hell of a group of people behind them. They were amazing.”

She followed her winning ways with Mindful to take second on new ride Baltimore owned by Jane Gaston and third with It’s Me, a stallion she co-owns with her mother Bibby Hill and Sue Pinney. First year horse Cornetto Royal leap frogged up the standings with Cassandra Kahle to take fourth.

Heavy hitters, three-time USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship winners Liza Boyd and Brunello cross cantered a stride following the trot jump to finish fifth, but the 18-year-old gelding, jumped in spectacular style.

Farmer slotted in with three additional rides to take sixth through eighth, giving her a lion’s share of the prize money, totaling at $79,000.

As “Grappa” stood outside the in-gate adorned in his tricolor ribbon and cooler, it was clear the 12-year-old gelding knew he had done something special. He held his head high and proud as the Lane Change group congregated around him.

“ ‘Those kids, they thought they were good tonight,’ “ Glefke jokingly imitated the black horse as he looked around.

“He was just right tonight,” Farmer said. “He was right in the schooling area; he was right in the ring. I knew I had it won, but he can be so smooth and so handy. He wanted to win. When he’s like that he’s unbelievable.

“I don’t really have any words,” she said, looking over as Glefke walked to join us.

“No,’ he agreed, “there are no words to describe it.”

With that many horses in the field, Farmer and Glefke decided to use it to their advantage. Farmer was first in the ring for the handy with Need I Say, a horse they’re excited about for the future, so they decided to test some turns out, should they need to call upon the heavy hitters to take the more difficult ones.

“I know [Need I Say] can do amazing things, and I wanted to know if Brunello put the pressure on how hard it was going to be with Grappa,” Glefke said. “I knew Grappa could do anything I had to ask him to do. I said try it out with this one, if it works then I know Grappa can do it easily too.”

“Liza [Boyd on Brunello] was who I was worried about. Obviously that doesn’t diminish anything from the rest of the class but my biggest fear was what Liza was going to do, how much pressure she was going to put on,” said Farmer, who came second at the 2015 USHJA International Hunter Derby Championships (Ky.) to Boyd and Brunello.

The course gave riders plenty of options, with three additional track offerings beyond the standard height options. Riders could elect to start over a pair of oxers heading in opposite directions, they then turned to fence two, a vertical headed away from the in gate where they were faced with an additional option—jump a line off the left or right lead in opposing directions. That track set them up for a different turn to a curved line of hay bale fences deterring their line to an oxer before the track became more standardized.

Most riders elected to take the left-hand oxer to start before turning right down the grey option line. An uncharacteristic number of rails plagued the field. Former derby finals winner Jen Alfano pulled a rail on each one of her three rides, as did junior rider Hunter Holloway and professional Harold Chopping with their mounts. It was often the height options that caused trouble, with the most rails coming from fence 7, a height option vertical with silos as standards.

See full results of the Ocala $100,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby.

To see more photos for the class, click here. And make sure to read the March 21 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse for more in-depth coverage of the weekend at HITS Ocala.

Want to learn more about Mindful? We went Behind The Stall Door with him.