Marlo or Marlou: Both Are Winners

Open season has started at the 62nd Pennsylvania National Horse Show. Mid-afternoon Tuesday, October 23, 13-year-old Texan Wilton James Porter on Benvolio snatched the $10,000 NAL Children’s Jumper Championship prize from Floridian Marque Cincotta by a second. Porter had two horses qualify for this final.

"It was a real benefit," said Porter, "to ride the course twice. My first horse had two rails and didn’t qualify for the second round, but Benvolio was clean. He’s a very careful horse, willing to listen but also forgiving. If I make a mistake, he will still clear the fences." Porter and Benvolio have been together for about a year.

Cincotta set the pace early, going second in the second round; Porter was the final rider of the class. The difference? "She steadied and I advanced on the final combination," he said. "We both cut inside the flowers between fences to save time." He just saved a bit more.

For the 8th grader Bartonsville, TX, this is his first time in the NAL Finals. He was a little nervous, but his trainer Ivan Zamora was confident. He is hoping to move up to the modified or lower Junior Jumpers next year, perhaps try equitation with his other horse.

Children’s Jumpers were an appetizer for the adrenalin pumping Open Jumpers as the jumps rose from 1.1 meters to 1.5, about a foot. For many of the horses, these two classes serve as warm-ups for the PA Big Jump on Thursday and the $65,000 Budweiser Grand Prix Saturday.

It was Marlo and Jimmy Torano in the $5,000 Idle Dice Speed Challenge. Rolling like thunder through the 13 jumps of Guilherme Jorge’s course took just under one minute.

"She’s a very fast horse – brave," he said of Marlo, "and she has a big stride." That made a difference as the course offered different striding options, and Torano dropped strides everywhere he could. "She was really ready to win tonight. I felt we got a bit hung up making the sharp right turn between the second and third fences, but not too badly. I’m aiming for the NAL Open Jumper Final Friday night, but she could also do the $25,000 PA Big Jump Thursday."

Closing the evening’s adrenalin rush was Kimberly Prince on Marlou edging Leslie Howard’s LennoxLewis2 in the $5,000 Jet Run "Power and Speed Classic." Horses in this class must clear all nine efforts in the first half of the course just for the chance to dash over the second half of the course as fast as they can. Again, no one wants to knock a rail down. Of 17 entries, Howard was the first to be clear in both phases and set the pace. Three more horses were clean but not as fast, until Prince. She scraped about a half second from Howard’s time and that was just enough.

"This is my dream horse," she said of the Dutch Warmblood mare she’s owned since 2002. "The course was welcoming, a nice ‘introductory’ course to get the horses and riders reacquainted with the Harrisburg arena. We may have lost some momentum turning back from the oxer to the narrow vertical, but she was looking for those last two fences and galloped on into them."

"I like the new surface. The sandy color makes the arena so bright and light. With the old surface, you’d have to scrape your boots after walking the course."