Eric Lamaze and Pulque Win $7500 1.45m Feature on Opening Day of Week Five at the Winter Equestrian Festival

Wellington, FL – February 23, 2005 – The Zada Enterprises, LLC Wellington Masters CSI 3* opened under sunny skies and warm temperatures at the 2005 Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) at the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club on Pierson Road in Wellington, Florida. This is the fifth of seven weeks of exciting show jumping action in Wellington, before the festival moves on to Tampa for two additional weeks and the grand finale, The $200,000 Budweiser American Invitational, on April 2nd, under the lights at Raymond James Stadium.

The course designer for the Internationale Arena this week is Leopoldo Palacious-Jugo of Caracas, Venezuela.

The scoring for the morning feature, the $7500 1.45m, was Table II, Sec 2(b), Time First Jump-Off. Thirty-eight starters went to the post for the 9 A.M. start. Twenty-two of those horse and rider combinations produced clean rounds and advanced to the timed jump-off and of the 22 that moved on to the tie-breaker, ten were double clear.

When the dust had settled it was Eric Lamaze edging McLain Ward for the Wednesday win. Lamaze, aboard Stacey Krembil’s Pulque cruised across the finish line with a clean round in a hasty time of 34.376 seconds.

Ward finished just off the top time. Aboard his mount Galant, Ward finished up just fractions short of the mark set by Lamaze. Ward broke the beams in 34.718 seconds, off the pace by 0.342 seconds.

Lauren Bass aboard the Maypine Farm’s Lionel finished 4.38 seconds behind Ward to take home the yellow ribbon for third. Bass tripped the timers in 39.107 seconds. Fourth place went to Millcreek’s Marco Taere, from the Millcreek Stable and ridden by Yann Candele, in 39.623 seconds. Carsten Jaeger of Germany finished fifth on Winley Farm’s Classic H. Jaeger’s time was 39.925 seconds. Sixth place went to Canada’s Ian Millar on In Style, owned by Sue Grande. Millar’s finish time was 39.991 seconds.

For Canadian rider Lamaze, it was the first win of the season. “I was second two times, but it felt great to finally win one,” Lamaze laughed. “It is more competitive than ever out here and you really need a good horse to win. There are so many riders and great horses. The sport has elevated like crazy here in the past two years and it’s very difficult to win a class. The quality of the horses has improved so much,” he added. “With everyone now competing in Europe and seeing what it takes and then finding and bringing those kinds of horses back here, I’ll tell you, it’s just great sport. I don’t care what anybody says, but I think that the horses that are winning here could be winning anywhere in the world,” Lamaze estimated.

Pulque was added to the Lamaze string at the end of Florida last year. “Pierre Jolicouer had the horse here last season as a sale horse. Jeffery Welles rode him and did very well with him. I bought the horse at the end of the WEF circuit last year. He’s been a great horse for me; a great addition to the string.”

Official Results - #1003 - $7500 1.45m – Table II Sec 2(b) – 2-23-05 – Internationale Arena

• 1 – Pulque, Eric Lamaze – 0-0/34/376
• 2 – Galant, McLain Ward – 0-0/34.718
• 3 – Lionel, Lauren Bass – 0-0/39.107
• 4 – Millcreek’s Marco Taere, Yann Candele – 0-0/39.623
• 5 – Classic H, Carsten Jaeger – 0-0/39.925
• 6 – In Style, Ian Millar – 0-0/39.991
• 7 – Cosequin’s CEO, Debbie Stephens – 0-0/40.509
• 8 – Nero, Chris Pratt – 0-0/40.635
• 9 – Rio Corde, William Lowry – 0-0/42.913
• 10 – Oberon, Michael Walton – 0-0/42.929
• 11 – King Louie, Molly Ashe – 0-4/34.478
• 12 – Orleen, Leslie Howard – 0-4/36.972

PHOTO CREDIT: Eric Lamaze and Pulque Win 1.45m. Photo by Randi Muster