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February 27, 2006
Rodrigo Pessoa Races to $20,000 1.50m Classic Win With Cantate Z at 2006 Winter Equestrian Festival
The weekends at WEF are obviously the busiest of the five days of equestrian action, and with the eight other show rings packed to capacity, the only remaining venue that was suitable for today’s $20,000 1.50m Classic (and the Seniors Jumpers) was the Internationale Arena warm-up ring. The newly installed RISO Ring, with its unique surface and specially customized drainage installed just prior to the start of this year’s festival, lived up to the rave reviews and made an excellent substitute location for today’s final two events. The $20,000 1.50m Classic, with an initial starting list of seventy-nine, saw that reduced by both the wet weather and the change to the much smaller venue. When all was said and done, forty-four starters took the field for the 2:30 p.m. kickoff. Scoring was under USEF Table II, Sec 2(a), Time First Jump-off. The course was designed by Leopoldo Palacios-Jugo of Venezuela. Of the forty-five that gave it a go today, seven qualified for the jump-off with a clear performance over the first round course. One competitor had no jumping faults, but picked up three time faults, and another thirteen riders had a single knockdown. Joe Fargis and Mary B. Schwab’s Edgar were first in the ring in the first round and mastered the course without a hint of trouble. Fargis then returned first in the timed tiebreaker and went clear again, setting a speedy pace as well, clocking in at 30.304 seconds. Kate Levy and Vent Du Nord also went clear, but fell shy of Fargis’ target by 1.1 seconds, coming home under the wire in 31.404 seconds. Robert Smith of Great Britain, yesterday’s winner on Gerry Maguire, owned by the Brook Furlong Farm, made a serious attempt to make it back to back WEF wins. Smith flew through the finish in 27.535 seconds, a full 2.7 seconds faster that Fargis, but pulled the second to last fence heading home to the finish line for four faults. Olympic Gold Medalist and three time World Cup Champion, Rodrigo Pessoa of Brazil, made two brilliant inside cuts on his way to today’s stunning victory over Fargis. Aboard the flashy Cantate Z owned by Orlandi Vittoruo, Pessoa crossed the finish line in 27.984 seconds, edging out Fargis by 2.32 seconds for the win. Nicole Simpson on the El Campeon Farms’ Aktion Pur, the last to go in today’s speed phase, produced a clear go and stopped the clock in 30.891 seconds, which was good enough for a third place finish. Pessoa had a chance to watch Fargis go, so he knew what he had to do. “I got a chance to see him. Obviously the difficult thing was the inside turn to the plank,” he detailed. “The plank was quite tall on five strides, and there was the other inside turn there that everybody did. So with that kind of jump-off, everything has to come your way for you to be able to walk away with it, and that’s what happened today.” Although he would have preferred the big grass field, Pessoa certainly understood the need to move to the much smaller all-weather ring. “The main thing is to keep the ground good for the next two weeks, the two biggest weeks of the circuit. So they took advantage of the chance they had to move to a surface that can take all the water, like this one can. It’s a little small, but it worked out okay,” he said. Pessoa was happy to talk about his talented mare. “She’s a Holsteiner mare that I’ve had for a bit more than a year,” he noted. “She’s really starting to step up and be really competitive now. She’s been a good horse here in Florida. She’s won one or two classes and placed well in the 1.50m the first week. So we’re just waiting now for the better classes to come the next two weeks.” Tomorrow’s $100,000 Zada Enterprises, LLC Masters Cup is the second East Coast League World Cup Qualifier in as many weeks and one of only two remaining. The main event also marks the fourth competition on the 2006 American Grand Prix Association (AGA) tour in South Florida. The AGA Grand Prix Series is the nation’s richest and longest running series of equestrian show jumping events. In its twenty eighth year of equestrian excellence, the AGA tour includes thirty two events in twenty two different equestrian markets and offers over $2.5 million dollars in prize money. Next week, the CN Worldwide Wellington Open, presented by Cosequin CSI 5*, includes the debut of the CN Worldwide Global Champions Tour on Sunday March 5, 2006. The 2006 Nations’ Cup, presented by CN, is one of the must see events of the season, It will be contested under the lights on Friday, March 10th, during the CN Wellington Finale CSIO 5*, and it marks the fifth time that the Winter Equestrian Festival will host this prestigious international event. The Nations’ Cup pits teams of show jumpers from multiple countries against each other in two rounds of competition. Results - $20,000 1.5M CLASSIC-TIME FIRST JUMP-OFF, II, 2(A)-LEVEL NAT
PHOTO CREDIT: Rodrigo Pessoa and Cantate Z win $20,000 1.50m Classic at WEF. Photo by Randi Muster. |
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Wellington,
FL – February 25, 2006 - A dreary and very wet day greeted the
competitors at the 2006 Winter Equestrian Festival at the Palm Beach
Polo Equestrian Club in Wellington on Saturday. The festival, in its
thirty-fourth year, is the nation’s largest and longest running
series of equestrian events. The wet weather certainly did not stop
the show, but it did force management to make some quick and unique
changes in an effort to save the Internationale Arena footing for Sunday’s
$100,000 Zada Enterprises Masters Cup and for the two big weeks of competition
that still lie ahead. The Internationale Arena was closed for the day
after completing the two morning classes on the grass.
