At the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Fla.
Georgina Bloomberg won her first big WEF grand prix under the Saturday night lights in the $127,000 Adequan Grand Prix. She left her top mount, Juvina, in the barn and turned instead to the younger Lilli for the class.
“It is a huge honor to beat every rider in this class, but especially to beat Laura Chapot,” Bloomberg said. “I think anybody that competes knows how much she wins and how difficult it is to beat her. Laura—I mean this with the utmost respect, but beating you tonight tastes so good!”
Bloomberg guided Gotham Enterprizes LLC’s 11-year-old Brandenburg mare, Lilli (Lefevre x Diamir), to the big win in a five-horse, all-American jump-off. She topped the class over Chapot and ISHD Dual Star, Wilton Porter with Diamonte Darco, Schuyler Riley and Dobra de Porceyo, and Todd Minikus with Babalou 41, who had the fastest jump-off time of the night but a rail. (Read more.)
Shane Sweetnam took the blue in the $34,000 Spy Coast Farm 1.45m speed class aboard Cyklon 1083 over Jessica Springsteen on Davendy S.
Sweetnam and the 14-year-old Swedish Warmblood stallion (Cardento x Cortus) are no strangers to the winner’s circle, especially in Wellington. The pair inked five FEI wins last year at WEF alone and went on to a great summer. “Every show he goes to, he is good. Last year he didn’t travel as much, but he has been great. I did a small show the first week in January, just two smaller classes, and this is his first major class back and today was great,” Sweetnam said.
“Jessie had a lovely, neat round,” Sweetnam continued. “That is a very fast horse naturally. It is quick in the air and really covers the ground. I had an idea of the numbers I had to do to be in contention, and I did those numbers. I regretted pulling an extra stride to the wall the other day, so today my plan was to do one less stride there. I didn’t take any pull, and I got a little lucky. He (Cyklon) made it happen, which he does. If I had taken a pull there and added another stride, I would have been too slow, so it worked out.”
Following a great win in the Jan. 25 $34,000 Suncast® 1.50m Championship Jumper Classic on the 10-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding AD Argos (Padinus x Concorde), de Miranda explained that his partnership with AD Argos has been a work in progress for the last two years.
As a 7-year-old, Argos won a bronze medal at the 2012 FEI World Breeding Jumping Championships for Young Horses in Lanaken, Belgium, with Dutch rider Mathijs van Asten. De Miranda bought the horse that year when he was turning 8 years old, and explained that although very talented, Argos had been a difficult stallion and continued to be a challenge even after he was gelded. Sunday’s win was a great payoff for the dedication that the rider has put into developing the horse.
“I bought him as a gelding, but he was a very difficult horse even last year,” De Miranda explained. “That is the horse that I broke my shoulder with last year at WEF during week seven or eight. He is very spooky with people. He is a horse that is very brave, but he is very sensitive, especially the way that he sees things sometimes. You can have a very spooky fence and he will jump it no problem, but then maybe he is looking at something else that you don’t notice. The most difficult thing for the last two years has been to keep him with you and know where to look.”
“Today, when I came in the jump-off to the Hermès jump, I was scared that he would look at the flowers,” the rider continued. “I showed him the flowers two times when I came in the arena and then he was okay, but sometimes he can surprise you for something that you cannot expect. That is why I rode him four days this week. When he is a little more tired, he feels better. For me, he is more relaxed. Today he was the best, the way that he was jumping was hard to have a mistake.”
Eric Lamaze continued an amazing streak with his third Ruby et Violette WEF Challenge Cup Series class win in a
row. “You don’t expect to win three in a row, even if you feel your horses are on form,” Lamaze admitted. “There were 74 starters and some of the best riders in the world and the best horses. It comes down to having a fast horse.
In the past three years, Lamaze has been slowly building up his string of horses, and acknowledged that he would not be where he is without great owners. ”It hasn’t been as easy as it may look now,” he stated. “It for sure took a lot of time to rebuild a good string of horses. There were a few mistakes along the way, but when you have great owners that support you and stay with you, success will come. The Ziegler family, Artisan Farms, they did that. It has been a long process, so this is the payoff. They are very competitive horses.”
At the Adequan Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Fla.
Lars Petersen and Mariett continued their winning streak by taking blue in the Grand Prix and Grand Prix freestyle. The Danish rider and Mariett have formed an incredible partnership through the years and their efforts are paying off greatly in the beginning of the 2015 season.
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Age has never been a concern with Mariett according to Petersen, as the mare will turn 18 next year. “She feels amazing, and I am confident that she will come back next year the same way. I don’t know what it is about her, but she continues to feel better with each ride,” he expressed.
A crowd favorite, Petersen plans to take Mariett out a few more times this season at AGDF, aiming her towards the Reem Acra FEI World Cup Finals in Las Vegas this April. “We will be doing a total of five shows throughout the season. I know what to do in-between the shows. I don’t need to push her any harder just because she is competing. It actually works very well for her,” commented Petersen. “I will be doing the CDI 5* in a few weeks and a couple more after that. My ultimate goal is to aim her for the World Cup Finals.”
“Her rideability has been amazing recently. It is not so much the movements; she’s just gotten so through and supple. She has been moving so nicely, and it has not always been that way,” stated Petersen. “I am just so proud of her, a 17-year-old horse that is moving like this and is still so fresh and happy. I couldn’t ask anything more from her.”
Keeping the mare happy and healthy are the focus for Petersen as the season continues. “There is something my Dad told me that I’ve always thought about in my career and I really like, ‘The art is not only getting them to Grand Prix, but the art is also keeping them there,’ and for me as a horseman that is important,” he recalled. “It’s a great philosophy.”
Spanish rider Jose Daniel Martin Dockx won the Grand Prix Special with Grandioso, a 1999 P.R.E. stallion. Dockx was very pleased with the way Grandioso handled the atmosphere under the lights, an unusual circumstance for the class. The large number of entries in the Intermediaire 1 class forced the FEI Grand Prix Special to run later in the day than usual. “I have a horse with great character, and he didn’t seem to care,” commented Dockx on riding underneath the lights. “It was actually better because the day of the Grand Prix he was very warm which made me a little scared it could be too much for him. Tonight it was a little cooler, and he doesn’t seem to care if it is day or night.”
As for their test, Dockx was happy with the mostly mistake-free week the pair has had and saw improvement in their tempi changes in the Grand Prix Special. “I was very happy with the one-tempis because in the last two or three shows I always miss one or two changes and this weekend we didn’t miss one. It is difficult for him to do the tempis on the centerline, and he did very well with it today,” he continued.
At the HITS Desert Circuit in Thermal, Calif.
Will Simpson just can’t be beat in California. He’s won all four grand prix classes so far at Thermal, including both the $25,000 SmartPak Grand Prix and the $50,000 Horze Equestrian Grand Prix aboard The Dude this week.
The Chronicle caught up with him to find out how he’s riding the wave of winning…
At the HITS Ocala Winter Circuit in Ocala, Fla.
Aaron Vale rode to the top of the $50,000 Equine Couture/Tuff Rider Grand Prix on the talented 9-year-old Quidam’s Good Luck over Olympic veterans McLain Ward on HH Ashley and Ian Millar on Baranus.
In the $25,000 SmartPak Grand Prix on Thursday, Lisa Goldman of Hawthorn
Woods, Ill., took the top check with her American-bred Centurion B.
She also won the Brook Ledge Open Welcome on Wednesday on Morocco (pictured).
“I have had both of these horses since they were very young. Morocco is by Roc USA and bred by Nancy Whitehead. He came up through the young jumper ranks and has won grand prix all over the place. I don’t ever think about going fast with him, he’s just a really fast horse. He’s a speedball,” said Goldman.
At the Rocking Horse Winter I Horse Trials in Altoona, Fla.
Buck Davidson got the three-star veteran Petite Flower underway for the season with a win in a division of intermediate. Marilyn Little topped the other open intermediate division aboard RF Quarterman—Davidson was second to her in that section on his Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games veteran Ballynoecastle RM.
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Little also won a division of open preliminary on RF West Indie; Leslie Law (Unborn de Lelo) and Alexandra Knowles (Sound Prospect) were the other open prelim winners.
At the Gulf Coast Winter Classics in Pensacola, Fla.
Andrew Kocher is unstoppable at the Gulf Coast series, adding another win in the $25,000 EMO Grand Prix aboard Heliante. In that class, he was also second (Cuffesgrange Lux Good), fourth (Cantu 5), fifth (Ufarno) and seventh (C’Havinia). He also won the 1.35-meter welcome class on C’Havinia.
The Pensacola portion of the Gulf Coast Classics series wrapped up on the 25th, and the shows moved to their Gulfport, Miss., venue for a Feb. 4 start date.
At the Zurich CSI-W
Spain’s Sergio Alvarez Moya and Carlo returned to top form today to win the tenth leg of the Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping 2014/2015 Western European League series at Zurich in Switzerland. The grey gelding had not been showing his usual sparkle over the winter months, but this afternoon, with his 30-year-old rider in determined mood, he out-galloped the Irish partnership of Bertram Allen and Molly Malone by one-tenth of a second for a convincing victory.
A reflective Sergio Moya said this evening “our poor results were not his (Carlo’s) fault for the last few months. My head was not focused on the sport as much as it should have been, but that’s changed now and we are riding together again with great confidence. When you don’t have good results you try to change things, and that isn’t always the right thing to do, so we went back to our olds ways and now we are jumping really well together again!”
Allen said, “I thought someone might beat me in the jump-off, and Sergio did one stride less to the last, but I’m happy with my result. Molly’s such a fantastic mare! I’ll give her another break, and then we’ll start getting ready for Las Vegas—it’s great to have picked up the points for the Final and I’m looking forward to it now!”
He has rocketed right up to third place on the Western European League leaderboard, shadowing only Olympic champion Steve Guerdat from Switzerland and French star Kevin Staut, while reigning Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping champion, Germany’s Daniel Deusser, lies behind the 19-year-old Irishman in fourth. Moya has moved into 18th position, but on 31 points, and with just two remaining qualifiers left to run, he knows he has more to do if he is to make it to the Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping 2014/2015 Final in three months time.
“I’ve always said that going to the Final is not one of my goals, but if I get qualified I will go” the Spanish rider pointed out this evening. “I am still young, and the last time we went to a Final (2013) Carlo jumped really well. So we will compete in Bordeaux, and if we are close to winning and close to qualifying for Las Vegas then we will see. If not, then we will make a different plan.”
Photo credits: WEF—Sportfot; Adequan Global Dressage Festival—SusanJStickle.com; HITS Ocala & Desert Circuit—ESI Photography; Zurich CSI—FEI/Karl-Heinz Frieler
