-
- U.S. Open Jumper Championship winner Kent Farrington on Madison
- © 2006 by Nancy Jaffer
Wellington, Fla., March 13, 2006 -- This certainly was a whirl of a weekend in Wellington, where the action never stops during the "season," which seems to get busier every year.
When the horse shows wrap up for the day, there's always at least one party, and usually two or three on the same evening. Yesterday, the person with the biggest reason to celebrate was Kent Farrington, the 25-year-old phenomenon who blazed across the U.S. show jumping scene last year with Madison. He guided this fleet bay mare, enthusiastically sharing his work ethic and love of competition, to the 2005 American Grand Prix Association Championship title. It appears to me as if he's headed for even bigger things in 2006.
Kent, who doesn't look much older than when he won the Medal finals in 1998, took the measure of many of the world's greatest riders in the $150,000 U.S. Open Jumper Championship at the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club during the Wellington Finale show.
It was a long afternoon, with a starting field of 47, 13 of which made it through to the jump-off. Course designer Steve Stephens, a candidate for that job at the 2008 Hong Kong Olympics, was planning on a large tie-breaker.
"It's been a very hard circuit," said Steve, "and a few of the riders had asked me, 'What are your intentions? Are you going to make it as difficult as the other grands prix have been?'"
The answer was no.
"I would like to calm it down," he told them, and was figuring on 10 clear, "but when you open the door for 10, you can get three more. And who I got in the jump-off were the players."
Many of them also were the legends that Kent idolized as a kid coming up in the sport.
"These are the people I watched forever and read about in my books. It's an honor just to have the opportunity to compete against riders and horses of that caliber," he said. What he didn't add, but I will, is that it's even more of an honor to beat them.
I felt the route wasn't quite as easy as Steve made it out to be. First of all, when he increased the original tight time allowed of 86 seconds to 88 seconds, it didn't do much to eliminate time faults.
And there were several trouble spots on the course, especially a triple combination, a vertical to two oxers, with one stride in between the fences, that dashed the hopes of many--including British veteran Nick Skelton, who had a fall there with Arko after a refusal. I counted 15 knockdowns on that test, stuck in a corner of the ring, jumping toward the crowd, near the end of the course.
Those are all elements that can cause problems.
-
- Samantha McIntosh on Loxley
- © 2006 by Nancy Jaffer
Steve set a lot of verticals at the beginning and middle of the route, which got the horses jumping "up" but not necessarily "across," so the oxers came as a real shocker, like an early morning alarm clock, to some of the horses.
We also had a sad scene there, as the veteran Viktor, with Todd Minikus up, stumbled after clearing fence 11C. All I could think of at that moment was Royal Kaliber bowing his tendon in the Athens Olympics. Viktor was taken off the field in a horse ambulance. When I went back to the stables to see him afterwards, Todd was standing by his stall, mute with sorrow, while the 15-year-old horse--bandaged from forearm to fetlock--was being attended to. It won't be clear until later today exactly what Viktor's injuries are.
One thing about a big jump-off is that it becomes a real speed duel, and the crowd of more than 8,000 was really into it. The pace-setter was Olympic team gold medalist Beezie Madden on Authentic, a little more conservative than usual, perhaps, because her horse had slipped during the Nations' Cup jump-off Friday night.
The consensus was that her clocking of 34.92 seconds for a clean round was beatable, and sure enough, it was clipped by the next rider, nine-time Olympian Ian Millar of Canada, though he had a rail down in 33.42 seconds.
Kent went eighth, and by that point the mark he had to beat was 34.19 seconds, set by Samantha McIntosh of Bulgaria (she's a native of New Zealand who rides for her boss's country.) Aboard Loxley, the same horse that she finished second with last weekend in the CN Worldwide Florida Open, she neatly crossed the finish line in 34.19 seconds.
