Wellington, Fla.—Feb. 3

Marilyn Little was breathless as she sat down to the press conference for the $100,000 Land Rover Wellington Eventing Showcase this afternoon. Between riding RF Demeter and RF Scandalous in the showcase at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival grounds, a jumper at the Palm Beach Masters CSI-W at nearby Deeridge Farm, and another jumper across the street at the Winter Equestrian Festival grounds, she had a lot on her plate.

But Little didn’t let her chaotic schedule get to her, and she’s currently sitting on top of the leaderboard at the showcase on RF Scandalous, scoring a 24.9 ahead of Ryan Wood on Powell (26.1) and Boyd Martin on Welcome Shadow (26.5).

Marilyn Little and RF Scandalous. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

“It’s been a bit of a challenge, and I think ‘Demi’ may have gotten the short end of the stick this morning,” she admitted. But Demi is still sitting in a good position, scoring a 29.4 for ninth place, one of 10 pairs to score in the 20s.

Little credited Swedish dressage trainer Bo Jenna, who she started training with in December.

“That’s been a real treat. He’s a lot of fun and a wonderful resource and a real horseman. He’s taken a special interest in ‘Kitty,’ so we’ve been working on some things,” said Little. “Today I wasn’t entirely sure whether the result would be positive or negative because there’s steps forward and back. I was worried because I’ve been trying to add more spark and a little bit more control to the changes and things where she could a bit fresh today and maybe we could see that in the ring, but I was pleasantly surprised. She was very businesslike, very on task, she was as lovely to ride as she always is.”

Little plans to use this event as part of both mare’s journeys to the Luhmühlen CCI**** (Germany) in June. She won’t run again until April, but has been working on dressage and jumping at WEF.

“This is such a wonderful venue for us to showcase our horses. It’s a time of year where we’re all working on things like presentation pieces; before you really have to start going after the fitness and get into the meat of the season,” she said. “This is a wonderful time to really work on things on the flat that you wish you could do better but sometimes a fit eventer doesn’t let you work on at the end of your season when you really wish you could.”

Little didn’t have a chance to look at the course, but headed out to take a look after the press conference.

Ryan Wood and Powell. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

Wood was pleased with Powell’s test. He’s been working with Martin’s wife Silva on the flat.

“It gets a little tough at the dinner table when I end up beating him!” he said with a laugh.

“It looks like a challenging course. It’s this horse’s first start for the year. They’re going to be sort of eyes popping a little bit. Usually we ease into it a little bit more than throwing them into a competition like this, but we’ve got some great schooling places around in Aiken, so they’ve been out a couple of times,” he added. “It’s going to be challenging. There’s some good questions. Mark has made some changes, and accuracy is going to be a factor.

On paper, it didn’t seem like Boyd would be near the top after dressage, leaving some of his big name horses at home, including last year’s winner Blackfoot Mystery. But “Shadow” has been quietly improving and moving her way up his string this year, and it showed with a lovely, steady test. She held the lead all morning until Little and Scandalous cantered down centerline after the lunchbreak.

Boyd Martin and Welcome Shadow. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

“I’m riding one of my favorites, Welcome Shadow. She’s just starting to feel seasoned in the ring. She’s been at the advanced level for two years now, and we’re just starting to get some of our best work together,” said Boyd. “She’s a wonderful mover and a real pleaser and a trier. Tomorrow will be a big test—it’s our first event for the year, but saying that, her last run was at Pau in France, and it was a very twisty, turny course over corners and narrows.

“Mark Phillips has really beefed up the course here, and I think it’s considerably trickier than the last couple of years and the time should be a bit harder to make. I think if you want to win a prize here, you’re really going to have to take a chance and go for broke, so it should be an exciting day of action,” he added.

Mark Bellissimo, CEO of Equestrian Sport Productions, spoke about the success of the showcase. He’s increased the prize money from $75,000 last year to $100,000 this year.

“We’re very happy to have this event in its third year. It’s an opportunity to expose a much broader audience to eventing, or at least an audience that really hasn’t seen eventing. Our fundamental goal in doing the event was to bring new owners into the sport and hopefully sponsors,” he said. “These athletes are the most underappreciated in the equestrian world. The challenges they face in their daily routine is significant. They’re great athletes with great horses, and we can try to enhance their stature within the equestrian domain. I’m confident that over time we can do that.”

For full results click here.

Show jumping gets underway tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. and cross-country will start at 1 p.m.