Tryon, N.C.—May 30  

“I had a really good feeling this morning when I woke up. You know, you sometimes just wake up with that feeling and it was specifically for this horse too,” Kristen Vanderveen said after she rode Bull Run’s Faustino De Tili to the top of the $127,000 Kingsland Grand Prix CSI 3*, the first Fédération Equestre Internationale grand prix at the Tryon International Equestrian Center.

“When I walked the course I thought it was a good course and I liked it because it was bigger than anything else we’ve seen this week. It was really friendly for the first FEI week, which I think is really appropriate and worked out great for me. I know he can turn extremely fast to the left and I went for it when we turned to the Kingsland combination in the jump-off and I think that’s how we got the win.”

The duo has only been partnered for a few months, as “Frosty” is a relatively new ride for Vanderveen, purchased from Europe during the Winter Equestrian Festival (Fla.) only a short time ago. Bull Run’s Faustino De Tili came with an already impressive record, having shown in Nations Cups and World Cup qualifiers in Europe with Ludo and Olivier Philippaerts.

“He’s great and very experienced. We’re relatively new together and he’s taken me a little bit of time to figure out because he’s really sensitive. We bought him knowing that he already had an accomplished record and I’ve just been waiting for us to click and start to understand each other and that definitely happened tonight,” she said. “In the warm-up on Thursday was when I really felt us starting to understand what the other was asking for. I felt a little bit different about how he wanted me to ride him and ever since that he’s been fantastic.

“The idea of coming to [Tryon] was to get all of my horses in a place where we could stay for the entire season so that I can work on my riding,” explained Vanderveen. “I have some new horses here and I wanted to make sure that we were in a place where we weren’t over stimulating them with travel and a ton of venues. I wanted a base where we could just get to know each other better.”

Bull Run’s Faustino De Tili is a powerful and stunning stallion with a very soft side according to Vanderveen, who says he’s a total ham in the barn. Not typically drawn to riding stallions, she’s been peasantly surprised by Frosty and she hopes that their partnership will continue to build in the coming weeks at TIEC with additional FEI classes on the horizon.

Vanderveen and Frosty started showing together in January, and focused on the 1.45- and 1.50-meter classes at the WEF and HITS Ocala (Fla.) venues. In April and early May, they placed fifth and third in $25,000 grand prix classes at Tryon Spring 3 and 4 shows.

“He’s still relatively young; he just turned 10 this year and there is definitely an adjustment period when you switch riders, which I think he’s still getting used to,” she commented. “Our partnership is starting to build and we’re beginning to trust each other more. I was transitioning him to a much lighter ride, which I don’t think he was used to and now he’s starting to trust that and we’re compromising so that I can get to where he’s comfortable too.”

Vanderveen also had another ride in the class, Bull Run’s Testify, her more seasoned partner, who finished in 13^th with just a single time fault. The pair has consistently performed well this year and Vanderveen was thrilled with the results on both of her horses tonight.

“Testify is very natural for me. I absolutely love him. I’ve been having some issues with time faults, which is completely on me and he’s just been a superstar. His way of going is a little bit more slow, so I have to figure out how to get to the next round,” she laughed. “Clean rounds are clean rounds. I couldn’t be asking for anything more from my horses. I’m so proud of the way they’ve been going.”

Vanderveen topped the class of 38 entries with a clean jump-off time of 43.92 seconds, just a 10th of a second faster than Sharn Wordley of New Zealand and Sky Group’s Casper who finished in second. Wordley also took home third place honors aboard his own Corino.

Final Results for $127,000 Kingsland Grand Prix CSI 3*

1. BULL RUN’S FAUSTINO DE TILI, 2005 Belgian Warmblood stallion by Berlin x Bijou De Vijfheide, KRISTEN VANDERVEEN (USA), Bull Run Jumpers Five, LLC.: 0/0/43.926

2. CASPER, 2006 Oldenburg gelding by Contender x Falubet, SHARN WORDLEY (NZL), Sky Group: 0/0/44.068

3. CORINO, 2004 Holsteiner gelding by Clearway, SHARN WORDLEY (NZL), Sharn & Della Wordley: 0/0/45.465

4. ARISTOTELES V, 2005 Dutch Warmblood gelding by Padinus x Tableau-Vivant, JONATHAN MCCREA (USA), Candy Tribble: 0/0/45.737

5. URUS 2, 2005 Oldenburg Springpferd gelding by Canturo x Finja, LIUBOV KOCHETOVA (RUS), Liubov Kochetova: 0/0/47.43

6. VALESKA, 2005 Belgian Warmblood mare by Vigo D’Arsouilles x Qua Breaker, CHARLIE JAYNE (USA), Pony Lane Farm: 0/4/42.021

7. CALL ME HANNES, 2006 Holsteiner gelding by Cassini II x Sestriere, DAVID BEISEL (USA), Harlow Investment Enterprises, LLC: 0/4/42.297

8. CHAQUI Z, 2006 Zangersheide stallion by Chacco Blue x Quilina Z, SHANE SWEETNAM (IRL), Spy Coast Farm: 0/4/45