An afternoon long, area wide power failure could not stop Leslie Howard of Westport, Connecticut from electrifying the Thursday afternoon crowd at the 2006 Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida. Howard and Youp raced to a stunning victory in Round One of the $25,000 WEF Challenge Series at the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club.
The nine week long series of Thursday grand prix events are major money qualifiers for the WEF finale, the $200,000 Budweiser American Invitational at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
An exciting new addition at this year’s WEF is the $200,000 FTI Rider Challenge, a rider bonus pool of $200,000. Riders will accumulate points from their performances in the Thursday and Sunday Grand Prix events. The rider with the most points on March 12 will be awarded $100,000. Second place will be given $50,000, third place will receive $30,000, and $20,000 will be given to fourth place. FTI Consulting of Annapolis, MD, is sponsoring the $200,000 FTI Rider Challenge.
A hefty field of seventy-two show jumping stars went to the post in the 1 p.m. feature at the Internationale Arena to compete over a course designed by 1976 Canadian Olympic Team member Michel Vaillancourt. The scoring was FEI Art. 238.2.2, Time First Jump-Off.
Of the seventy-two that started, only five horse and rider combinations were able to negotiate the Vaillancourt course without penalty. One pair went fault free but picked up a single time fault and nine other competitors had a single knockdown.
Keri Pessoa, wife of 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist Rodrigo Pessoa of Brazil, went first in the class, finished with a clear round, and made it look easy. Aboard Rockford, she was the first to return for the timed tiebreaker, and completed her second fault free performance of the day, tripping the timers in 41.27 seconds.
Leslie Howard, riding the S’blieft Group’s Youp, was the second challenger in the five horse jump-off. Howard was unbelievably fast and made every possible inside cut en-route to a dazzling clean performance. Her finish time was 35.35 seconds, almost six full seconds faster than Pessoa.
Canada had the next two representatives in the speed phase with Mario Deslauriers and his Graf Lando as the next to challenge. Deslauriers was able to top Pessoa to move into second place but missed the mark set by Howard by 4.93 seconds. He clocked in at 40.28 seconds.
Ian Millar, an eight time Olympian for Canada, was the fourth of five challengers for the Thursday’s top prize. Millar was up on The Bakers Dozen’s entry of Promise Me, his Olympic partner from Athens, Greece. Millar, while following the inside route mapped out by Howard earlier in the jump-off, could not quite match Howard’s speed. He broke the beams in 36.62 seconds, 1.27 seconds off the pace.
Trezebees, owned and shown by sixteen year-old Addison Phillips of New York City, competed in her first ever Thursday WEF Challenge. She had the final chance to catch Howard. Phillips had the crowd on their feet as she too made all the inside cuts, and appeared on a pace to catch the leader. Phillips raced home in 36.22 seconds, 8/10ths of a second off the winning pace, but fast enough to squeeze out a second place finish just ahead of the veteran Millar.
Phillips took none of the credit for herself. “I’ve got a real pro for a horse and I just gave it my best shot out there today,” she said. “I’m so excited. This is my first Thursday Grand Prix and I couldn’t be happier.”
Happy would be an understatement in describing Howard’s mood following today’s stunning victory. When asked about her speedy performance, she said laughing, “I don’t do slow very well.” And she added, “I’m just very thrilled and excited. I have a really nice string of horses again and I’m really looking forward to the circuit and to this coming year.”
“It always feels good to win,” she said. “The last six months this horse has been incredible for me. He won at Syracuse, he was clear in the President’s Cup at Washington, he was clear again at Jacksonville and won again today. He’s never going to be an Olympic horse,” Howard admitted, “but he sure fights every time he goes in the ring.”
Was Howard shocked that only five of seventy-two were clear? “I was surprised, for sure. I walked it and had to go near the top, so I didn’t get to study the course as long as I would have liked. And maybe that was a good thing,” she said laughing. “I thought it was a good course. The water line was a little tricky and careful and technical. And when I walked the triple, I thought to myself ‘Gee, I don’t know if he had to go this big for this class,’ but,” she said, “it turned out in my favor and lord knows I’m not complaining.”
“I haven’t decided if I’ll come back with him on Sunday or not,” Howard noted. “I have to watch him because he doesn’t have a ton of scope. I have to make sure he doesn’t jump big every time he walks to the ring. I’ll just have to see how he comes out tomorrow. If he comes out felling really strong and full of energy, I’ll enter him for Sunday’s Grand Prix.”
Results - $25,000 Round One, WEF Open Challenge Series – FEI Art.238.2.2, Time First Jump-Off – International Arena – 1-26-06
1 – Youp- Sblieft Group- Leslie Howard – 0-0/35.35
2 – Trezebees- Addison Phillips- Addison Phillips – 0-0/36.22
3 – Promise Me- The Bakers Dozen- Ian Millar – 0-0/36.62
4 – Graf Lando- Mario Deslauriers- Mario Deslauriers – 0-0/40.28
5 – Rockford- Keri Pessoa- Keri Pessoa – 0-0/41.27
6 – Catesko- South Shore Farm- Tjeert Rukens – 1 – 85.07
7 – Pandur 292- Salamander Farm- Paige Johnson – 4 – 79.01
8 – Viktor- Harry R. Gill- Todd Minikus – 4 – 79.14
9 – Hidden Creek’s Alibi- Hidden Creek Farm- Margie Engle – 4 -79.88
10 – Naomi- Mario Deslauriers- Mario Deslauriers – 4 – 80.83
11 – Play On- Allan Shore, Jr.- Beezie Madden – 4 – 80.87
12 – Roxanne- Floriac LLC- Eric Flameng – 4 – 80.99
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