Impressive
Season Debut for Beezie Madden and Authentic in $25,000 WEF Challenge
Cup Win at Winter Equestrian Festival
Wellington,
FL – February 17, 2006 – The fourth week of action at the
2006 Winter Equestrian Festival, the Bainbridge Florida Classic/WCHR
Hunter Spectacular, presented by the Palm Beach Post, featured top show
hunters in the Internationale Arena and the top show jumpers in the
world taking center stage next door at the DeNemethy Arena.
Friday’s main event was Round IV of the $25,000 WEF Challenge Cup Series.
The nine week long series of Thursday grand prix events are major money qualifiers for the $200,000 Budweiser American Invitational at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, and are also key qualifying events for the all new $200,000 FTI Rider Challenge, a rider bonus pool of $200,000. To win the challenge, riders accumulate points from both their performances in the Thursday WEF Challenge classes 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.
Beezie Madden, the FTI Rider Challenge leader coming into Friday’s $25,000 WEF Challenge Cup, came home victorious on her Gold Medal Olympic partner Authentic and in so doing, began to put some distance between her and second place in the race for the $100,000 first place bonus.
Today’s class was scored under FEI Table A. One Round Against the Clock. Article 238.2.1. The course designer this week is Jose “Pepe” Gamarra of Bolivia.
While last week’s class saw the second largest starting field in WEF Challenge Cup history at eighty-four, Friday’s event marked the season’s smallest field to date, with only thirty-five starters gathering for the 1p.m. start.
Before the throng assembled ringside at the DeNemethy Arena had a chance to settle into their seats and grab that first bite of popcorn, the storyline of today’s WEF Challenge Cup class was pretty much written.
Riding out of the second spot in the jumping order, Olympic Gold Medalist Beezie Madden and her Olympic partner, Abigail Wexner’s Authentic, made their grand prix season debut with a stunning performance. With extremely tight turns at every opportunity and a steady gallop the entire track, Madden and Authentic clocked in fault free and stopped the timers at 69.93 seconds.
It was quite apparent the dynamic duo was fast, but how fast became even clearer as one rider after another failed to catch Madden’s feverish pace. Eventually, two riders managed to top the time, but they did so at the expense of two knockdowns.
Canada’s
Chris Pratt and last week’s WEF Challenge Cup winner, Rivendell,
owned by Susan Grange, were the next fastest finishers. They ended with
the second place ribbon, tripping the timers in 70.61 seconds, 6/10ths
of a second off the pace.
“I have a great horse and he’s naturally fast, so I just made a few tight turns and let him go in a couple of places,” explained Madden following today’s win. “He’s just a very fast horse.”
“I thought she was beatable,” said Pratt, “But Beezie is a little tricky sometimes because she makes everything look so easy and look so smooth. More times than not, it’s not as easy as she makes it look,” he laughed. “My horse has a big stride. I knew I could match some of the turns that Beezie did, but I did get hung up in a turn, and I think I could have been one stride faster in a couple of the rollbacks.”
Madden said that today’s course was a perfect fit for her 2004 Athens Olympic partner. “Basically with him my right turns are better than my left turns, and it was a very right handed course today, so it was pretty much uninterrupted in a lot of places,” she detailed. “Where other people had to make adjustments, I could just keep flowing through the turns. I don’t know that there was one particular place that was faster than another, other than from the vertical at 11 to the triple bar towards the end,” she said. “It was easy to go right and then bring him right again over that fence where others were kind of bulging out to get to the triple bar at 12.”
Madden liked the idea of applying pressure from the start. “I went early, so I had to try and set a time that people had to chase a little bit and take some risks to try to beat me, and I think I did just that,” she smiled. “It worked out really well because the few people that caught my time had rails doing it.”
“In all honesty,” said Pratt, “I thought there would be more jumping clear at the end of the day in that class.”
Madden agreed, “It ended up being a good course. I thought when I walked it that there would be a lot clear because it wasn’t so big, but I think in the end that made people go a little faster, and that always makes it more difficult to jump clear.”
Today’s event was the seventh FTI Riders Challenge qualifying class. “It’s a huge bonus for us. The winner gets $100,000, and that’s a huge help to us going into the year,” said Madden, who now enjoys a comfortable lead in the race. “I didn’t know how great a chance I’d have for that really. I was waiting till this week to show Authentic, Judgement isn’t coming out till next week, and Desilvio hadn’t done a lot lately. Play On was the big surprise for me,” she admitted. “I used him the first week because it was 1.40m and he’s just starting that, and I thought he could at least keep me from being at the back of the pack and instead, he put me right up there at the top of the list; so that was a real nice surprise.”
Pratt’s second place finish today moves him up the charts as well. “I think in this sport when you put together any kind of series, especially over a circuit like WEF, where you’re accumulating points through the whole series, you end up rewarding the most consistent riders and that’s great. I like the way they’ve strung it across the whole tour.
And I like the fact that it’s a rider’s bonus,” he added with a laugh. “That doesn’t happen that often.”
For Pratt, today’s money won might be enough to assure him a spot in America’s richest outdoor show jumping event, the $200,000 Budweiser American Invitational. “I’m so excited,” Pratt beamed. “That would be my first American Invitational. It’s something I’ve dreamed about doing my whole life. It would be meeting another one of those goals I set for myself when I was quite young, to try and get in that stadium and compete. Maybe today’s second place finish will get me there.”
Madden and Authentic, the 2005 Budweiser American Invitational champs, plan a return visit to Raymond James Stadium in April as well.
The main event on Sunday at the 2006 Winter Equestrian Festival is the $75,000 Bainbridge Idle Dice Classic, presented by the Palm Beach Post CSI-W. The class is also the third American Grand Prix Association (AGA) event of the 2006 show jumping season.
Results of Class 101- ROUND IV- $25000 WEF CHALLENGE CUP CSI 3* - Florida Classic WCHR CSI 3* - 2/17/06 – DeNemethy Arena
1 2503 BEEZIE MADDEN AUTHENTIC 0.00 69.93 $7500
ABIGAIL S. WEXNER
2 817 CHRIS PRATT RIVENDELL 0.00 70.61 $5500
SUSAN GRANGE
3 2017 IAN MILLAR IN STYLE 0.00 72.02 $3250
SUSAN GRANGE
4 266 FEDERICO SZTYRLE FATALIS FATUM 0.00 73.29 $2000
WOLFFER ESTATE ST
5 2257 CANDICE KING TARCO 0.00 73.55 $1500
JOAN KALMAN
6 766 AMY MOMROW SUMMER STORM 0.00 73.59 $1250
SHAINE BROOKS
7 485 CHRISTINE MCCREA PROMISED LAND 0.00 75.52 $1000
CANDY TRIBBLE
8 2018 IAN MILLAR REDEFIN 0.00 76.01 $750
SUSAN GRANGE
9 365 EDUARDO SALAS HERRER LANDDAME 0.00 78.40 $750
ROCKYMT WARMBLOODS
10 3403 LAURA KRAUT MISS INDEPENDENT 4.00 70.22 $500
MISS INDEPEND. GRP
11 3628 SANTIAGO LAMBRE CURANT 4.00 70.92 $500
SANTIAGO LAMBRE
12 136 MARGIE ENGLE CALIPPO 12 4.00 72.33 $500
WYNDHURST STABLES
From www.StadiumJumping.com
Photos:©professionalsphoto.com
Wellington,
FL – February 17, 2006 – The fourth week of action at the
2006 Winter Equestrian Festival, the Bainbridge Florida Classic/WCHR
Hunter Spectacular, presented by the Palm Beach Post, featured top show
hunters in the Internationale Arena and the top show jumpers in the
world taking center stage next door at the DeNemethy Arena.Friday’s main event was Round IV of the $25,000 WEF Challenge Cup Series.
The nine week long series of Thursday grand prix events are major money qualifiers for the $200,000 Budweiser American Invitational at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, and are also key qualifying events for the all new $200,000 FTI Rider Challenge, a rider bonus pool of $200,000. To win the challenge, riders accumulate points from both their performances in the Thursday WEF Challenge classes 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.
Beezie Madden, the FTI Rider Challenge leader coming into Friday’s $25,000 WEF Challenge Cup, came home victorious on her Gold Medal Olympic partner Authentic and in so doing, began to put some distance between her and second place in the race for the $100,000 first place bonus.
Today’s class was scored under FEI Table A. One Round Against the Clock. Article 238.2.1. The course designer this week is Jose “Pepe” Gamarra of Bolivia.
While last week’s class saw the second largest starting field in WEF Challenge Cup history at eighty-four, Friday’s event marked the season’s smallest field to date, with only thirty-five starters gathering for the 1p.m. start.
Before the throng assembled ringside at the DeNemethy Arena had a chance to settle into their seats and grab that first bite of popcorn, the storyline of today’s WEF Challenge Cup class was pretty much written.
Riding out of the second spot in the jumping order, Olympic Gold Medalist Beezie Madden and her Olympic partner, Abigail Wexner’s Authentic, made their grand prix season debut with a stunning performance. With extremely tight turns at every opportunity and a steady gallop the entire track, Madden and Authentic clocked in fault free and stopped the timers at 69.93 seconds.
It was quite apparent the dynamic duo was fast, but how fast became even clearer as one rider after another failed to catch Madden’s feverish pace. Eventually, two riders managed to top the time, but they did so at the expense of two knockdowns.
Canada’s
Chris Pratt and last week’s WEF Challenge Cup winner, Rivendell,
owned by Susan Grange, were the next fastest finishers. They ended with
the second place ribbon, tripping the timers in 70.61 seconds, 6/10ths
of a second off the pace.“I have a great horse and he’s naturally fast, so I just made a few tight turns and let him go in a couple of places,” explained Madden following today’s win. “He’s just a very fast horse.”
“I thought she was beatable,” said Pratt, “But Beezie is a little tricky sometimes because she makes everything look so easy and look so smooth. More times than not, it’s not as easy as she makes it look,” he laughed. “My horse has a big stride. I knew I could match some of the turns that Beezie did, but I did get hung up in a turn, and I think I could have been one stride faster in a couple of the rollbacks.”
Madden said that today’s course was a perfect fit for her 2004 Athens Olympic partner. “Basically with him my right turns are better than my left turns, and it was a very right handed course today, so it was pretty much uninterrupted in a lot of places,” she detailed. “Where other people had to make adjustments, I could just keep flowing through the turns. I don’t know that there was one particular place that was faster than another, other than from the vertical at 11 to the triple bar towards the end,” she said. “It was easy to go right and then bring him right again over that fence where others were kind of bulging out to get to the triple bar at 12.”
Madden liked the idea of applying pressure from the start. “I went early, so I had to try and set a time that people had to chase a little bit and take some risks to try to beat me, and I think I did just that,” she smiled. “It worked out really well because the few people that caught my time had rails doing it.”
“In all honesty,” said Pratt, “I thought there would be more jumping clear at the end of the day in that class.”
Madden agreed, “It ended up being a good course. I thought when I walked it that there would be a lot clear because it wasn’t so big, but I think in the end that made people go a little faster, and that always makes it more difficult to jump clear.”
Today’s event was the seventh FTI Riders Challenge qualifying class. “It’s a huge bonus for us. The winner gets $100,000, and that’s a huge help to us going into the year,” said Madden, who now enjoys a comfortable lead in the race. “I didn’t know how great a chance I’d have for that really. I was waiting till this week to show Authentic, Judgement isn’t coming out till next week, and Desilvio hadn’t done a lot lately. Play On was the big surprise for me,” she admitted. “I used him the first week because it was 1.40m and he’s just starting that, and I thought he could at least keep me from being at the back of the pack and instead, he put me right up there at the top of the list; so that was a real nice surprise.”
Pratt’s second place finish today moves him up the charts as well. “I think in this sport when you put together any kind of series, especially over a circuit like WEF, where you’re accumulating points through the whole series, you end up rewarding the most consistent riders and that’s great. I like the way they’ve strung it across the whole tour.
And I like the fact that it’s a rider’s bonus,” he added with a laugh. “That doesn’t happen that often.”
For Pratt, today’s money won might be enough to assure him a spot in America’s richest outdoor show jumping event, the $200,000 Budweiser American Invitational. “I’m so excited,” Pratt beamed. “That would be my first American Invitational. It’s something I’ve dreamed about doing my whole life. It would be meeting another one of those goals I set for myself when I was quite young, to try and get in that stadium and compete. Maybe today’s second place finish will get me there.”
Madden and Authentic, the 2005 Budweiser American Invitational champs, plan a return visit to Raymond James Stadium in April as well.
The main event on Sunday at the 2006 Winter Equestrian Festival is the $75,000 Bainbridge Idle Dice Classic, presented by the Palm Beach Post CSI-W. The class is also the third American Grand Prix Association (AGA) event of the 2006 show jumping season.
Results of Class 101- ROUND IV- $25000 WEF CHALLENGE CUP CSI 3* - Florida Classic WCHR CSI 3* - 2/17/06 – DeNemethy Arena
1 2503 BEEZIE MADDEN AUTHENTIC 0.00 69.93 $7500
ABIGAIL S. WEXNER
2 817 CHRIS PRATT RIVENDELL 0.00 70.61 $5500
SUSAN GRANGE
3 2017 IAN MILLAR IN STYLE 0.00 72.02 $3250
SUSAN GRANGE
4 266 FEDERICO SZTYRLE FATALIS FATUM 0.00 73.29 $2000
WOLFFER ESTATE ST
5 2257 CANDICE KING TARCO 0.00 73.55 $1500
JOAN KALMAN
6 766 AMY MOMROW SUMMER STORM 0.00 73.59 $1250
SHAINE BROOKS
7 485 CHRISTINE MCCREA PROMISED LAND 0.00 75.52 $1000
CANDY TRIBBLE
8 2018 IAN MILLAR REDEFIN 0.00 76.01 $750
SUSAN GRANGE
9 365 EDUARDO SALAS HERRER LANDDAME 0.00 78.40 $750
ROCKYMT WARMBLOODS
10 3403 LAURA KRAUT MISS INDEPENDENT 4.00 70.22 $500
MISS INDEPEND. GRP
11 3628 SANTIAGO LAMBRE CURANT 4.00 70.92 $500
SANTIAGO LAMBRE
12 136 MARGIE ENGLE CALIPPO 12 4.00 72.33 $500
WYNDHURST STABLES
From www.StadiumJumping.com
Photos:©professionalsphoto.com