With a victory in her first big start of the year, Sapphire looks ready to take on the world.

McLain Ward has a goal for 2009. “I’d like to win [the Rolex FEI World Cup Final] this year,” he said with a steely sense of purpose.

“I’ve had one vision since the Olympic Games, and it’s the World Cup Final,” he continued. “I’ve knocked on the door a few times—I just need to put it all together and get it done. Sapphire’s gone to Las Vegas [for the World Cup Final] twice now and done well, but it’s just slipped away from us both times. That’s not going to happen this year.”

In her first grand prix outing of 2009, Sapphire showed she’s up for the challenge, topping the $150,000 CN CSIO Grand Prix on March 1 in Wellington, Fla.

“I think she’s in really good form,” said Ward. “She’s felt good this winter. We gave her a nice long rest after [the Syracuse Invitational Sporthorse Tournament (N.Y.) in November]. Our whole focus is for the World Cup Final. She’ll have a few select starts before that. She felt perhaps a touch rusty today, but solid, in the first round. In the jump-off, she felt right back on form. She’s just an amazing horse.”

Sapphire was one of just six horses from the original field of 47 to jump clear over Frank Rothenberger’s first-round course. A tough question came early in the course, with the line of fence 4 to 5ABC.

Riders had to jump the CN vertical at 4, then decide between six and seven strides to the triple combination at 5ABC. The A element of the triple was a massive triple bar, and there was a long one-stride distance (25’6″) to the B element of an oxer. The distance between the oxer at B and the vertical at C was an extremely tight two strides (34’2″).

Christine McCrea, placed second behind Ward, was concerned about fitting Promised Land into the combination.

“The triple was quite difficult for my horse,” she said. “A to B was a bit long, and then B to C was quite short, so for a big horse it was quite hard.”

For the jump-off, Rothenberger removed the A element of the triple combination and made riders ride directly from the CN vertical at 4 to the tight two-stride of 5BC. The jump-off was a classic combination of tight rollback turns and two long gallops.

Ward and Sapphire’s Olympic teammates, Laura Kraut on Cedric, were the first to jump off. They fell victim to the front rail of 5B and finished with the fast time of 47.18 seconds. A rail fell as well for Georgina Bloomberg on Curius.

Sapphire and Ward made short work of the jump-off, with Sapphire’s huge stride making the most of the gallops. They stopped the timers clear in 46.37 seconds. “I thought I left a little room for someone to beat us, but it was our day,” he said.

McCrea came next and tried her best.

“I tossed around leaving a stride out to the double [5BC] in the jump-off, but I knew how short the two strides was in there, so I couldn’t imagine coming in there any faster,” she said. “So, I tried to turn as sharp as I could. And I ran to No. 2 as fast as I could. Maybe another day I could have gotten luckier and beaten McLain, but not today.”

Her time was .7 seconds off Ward’s pace. When the last two riders to jump-off both had rails, victory was Ward’s.

Lauren Hough and Naomi 152 had the time to win (46.11 seconds), but they just rolled the top rail off the CN vertical to place third.

Like Ward, McCrea has her sights set on the Rolex FEI World Cup Final, April 15-19 in Las Vegas, Nev. She’s currently fourth in the standings, with two qualifiers to go. Her mount in Las Vegas wouldn’t be Promised Land, but Vegas, the stallion she rode on the U.S. team for the $75,000 CN Nations Cup on Feb. 27.

“I named him Vegas, but at that point the World Cup Finals weren’t in Vegas. It’s purely a coincidence,” McCrea said.

In the $150,000 CN CSIO Grand Prix, Ward was in the unusual position of accepting the prize money check from a former owner. Hunter Harrison, CEO of CN Railway, owned both Sapphire and Ward’s other super-mare, Goldika 559, for a number of years.

In fact, Harrison was cheering Sapphire on during the jump-off. “I was hollering from the end,” he said.

“I actually heard him yell—I know the tone!” quipped Ward.

“When we parted in the spring of 2006, the World Equestrian Games were coming up and McLain had a great chance at the WEG with Sapphire,” Harrison said. “I’d already made up my mind that even if I still owned Sapphire at the time, that McLain would still ride her at the WEG. It absolutely would have been the wrong thing to do to say ‘I’m taking your two top horses away.’ I wanted to see McLain do well and the team do well.”

But Ward managed to find Thomas Grossman of Blue Chip Bloodstock to help him make an offer to buy Sapphire and Goldika. “He’d had such a great record on the two mares, and he gave me a fair price,” Harrison said. “I felt like he deserved it. I’ve kept a keen interest in the horses and watched them over the years.”

 “We parted with a handshake and as friends; it wasn’t an ugly ending,” said Ward. “What a sponsor CN has been for our sport for 10 years now. I don’t know if everyone realizes how hard Hunter works to spearhead this support. He’s a great sportsman.”

The deal worked well for Ward, since Sapphire went on to win team silver at the 2006 WEG and team gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in Hong Kong.

Goldika, now 17, has been a consistent winner as well. In fact, she won the $25,000 1.50-meter classic on Feb. 28 and the $25,000 Fidelity Investments Jumper Classic. “She’s an unbelievable little horse. She’s all heart,” Ward said.