Upper Marlboro, Md.—Oct. 7

All week John French and Scott Stewart have been battling it out for the top ribbons in the professional classes at Capital Challenge. So when it came to the WCHR Pro Final, they were both eager to take the final prize.

In the introduction video of the riders before the class French joked that he was hoping to disappoint Stewart one more time. And French ultimately had the last laugh.

In the three-round format class where riders catch ride two horses before showing one of their own, French was untouchable. He topped all three rounds to win on a score of 271.32 over Stewart’s 262.32.

“I do this all the time is ride a lot of different horses,” said the four-time winner of the class. “I catch ride at horse shows so that’s not new to me—to ride different horses.”

French made his point early on in the class, riding Alant to a 90.66, creating a comfortable margin for himself ahead of Kelley Farmer who rode Pure Imagination to an 86.16. Farmer faulted in the second round when Dreamliner pulled a rail, dropping her to sixth in the standings and she was unable to recover.

French repeated his performance with Everglow before tacking up Small Gesture, to once again top the standings for that round.

“I had a few choices [of who to ride] which is nice. In years past I’ve not really had a horse to ride sometimes and I’d borrow a horse for the final round because maybe the few horses that I bring all the way from California did a division with me and they had to do the juniors or the amateurs, and we thought it was too much,” said French.

He picked right in the Holsteiner gelding owned by Chris Iwasaki and Liz Reilly, a horse he regularly shows in the second year greens and contested the USHJA International Derby Championship (Ky.) with, where they placed 13th.

Stewart made up some ground by taking second in the final round. He brought his winning partner from the previous year in Reality and the stallion once again delivered, this time for second.

“Reality, I’ve had forever, so I know him pretty well. He’s really fun, so I thought he did a good job,” said Stewart.

Scott Stewart and Reality. Photo by Laura Lemon

Since it was her first appearance in the Pro Finals, Katie Gardner was just excited to be there, but she exceeded her own expectations, jumping to third after having the lowest first round total of 84.

Just to get to do it was such a thrill,” she said. “When my friend heard over the live stream that I’d made it – I wasn’t really sure how the points were working. I got a nice surprise in that class. She sent me a text – ‘You made it!’  I said, ‘What!? I made it?’ Honestly being a little bit of an underdog was I think an awesome thing for me. My first time in there just go in there and do the best I could.

“It was just a blast. I’m really honored,” she finished.

Katie Gardner and Chrush. Photo by Kimberly Loushin

Don’t forget to check out the gallery full of photos from tonight’s class.

Click to see full results.

Want more Capital Challenge? We’ve got all of our coverage here. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of the Oct. 24 issue of the Chronicle.