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Nick Skelton and Carlo 273 Win
Adequan Grand Pris at Wellington

Jennifer Wood

Wellington, FL - February 7, 2010 - After three major second place finishes in the first three weeks of the 2010 FTI Winter Equestrian Festival, Nick Skelton (GBR) and Carlo 273, owned by Beverly Widdowson, stepped up into the winner's circle in the $75,000 Adequan Grand Prix, CSI 2*. They caught the win over Pablo Barrios (VEN) and G&C Quick Star 11, owned by Gustavo and Carolina Mirabal, and Beezie Madden (USA) on Abigail Wexner's Danny Boy.

Today's class concluded competition for the fourth week of the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF), and the week four title sponsor is Adequan. The 2010 FTI Winter Equestrian Festival has 12 weeks of competition that conclude on April 4, 2010, and the circuit will be awarding almost $6 million in prize money through the circuit.

Michel Vaillancourt (CAN) was the course designer for today's grand prix, which featured 14 numbered obstacles and 17 fences altogether that included the open water and a triple combination. There were 35 entries, and five of them found the clear round to move on to the jump-off. "I thought it was fair, some difficult lines," Skelton said. Barrios added, "To me, it was a pretty careful course to ride, but I liked it for my horse. I felt pretty confident when I walked the course. I felt like we could go clear."

Going first in the class and first in the jump-off was Christine McCrea (USA) on Romantovich Take One, owned by Candy Tribble. McCrea and Romantovich had a mistake at jump seven in the shortened course when they accidentally jumped the wing of the standard outside of the flag marker. This eliminated them as "off course" and they finished in fifth place.

Pablo Barrios and G&C Quick Star 11 were the next to test, and they were able to go through with a clear round in 40 seconds flat. Barrios and G&C Quick Star 11, a 10-year-old Dutch mare by Quick Star xx Grannus, won the fourth round of the WEF Challenge Cup on Thursday afternoon. "At the moment, it's the best horse that we have. I've only shown her six times, and she's always in the ribbons," Barrios said.

Barrios went on to say, "I was a little early in the jump-off, so I tried to go as fast as possible. I didn't find the forward distance that I like to have. I had the feeling that someone would get my time."

Following Barrios, Richard Spooner and Pariska 2, owned by C&S Partnership LLC, had 12 faults in 40.35 seconds for fourth place. Beezie Madden and Danny Boy put in a quick round but finished just off the pace with a clear round in 40.24 seconds.

Skelton and Carlo 273, a nine-year-old Holsteiner gelding by Contender xx Cascavelle, took their shot at the win. Skelton made two neat rollbacks in the course, and when it came time to turn for home, Skelton pushed the grey into a very fast gallop to the final oxer. They stopped the timers in 39.72 seconds for the win.

"I knew I couldn't hang about. I watched Pablo on the screen outside. I did what I could do. Maybe I was a little bit faster to the last jump. I let it rip to the last, really," he said with a grin.

Skelton thinks that Carlo 273 is a very special horse, and believes his quirks can also be a benefit. "He's really nervous with horses coming towards him. He turns and runs the other way. He watches everything. He'll see a dog move, a child walking, or a golf cart go by, but when he goes through the start, he's a totally different horse. He lives on his nerves, but that's probably what makes him so good. This horse could be a very serious good horse," he noted. "I think he's an exceptional horse. He's very, very talented. He's fantastically careful. He has all the scope, and he's good to ride."

Carlo 273 has only had one rail in four weeks of competition, and he has been amazingly consistent. In week one, he was second in the $25,000 Suncast 1.50m Classic, and in weeks two and three, he was second in the major grand prix. "I made one mistake in the WEF on the second week. It was my fault," Skelton admitted.

For today's grand prix, Skelton felt that he could ask for a little more of Carlo 273. "It's probably as quick as I've asked him to go. I've taken a long time with him. (In the past two years), I didn't really speed him, never tried to win a class with him. Next week he'll do the 1.40m quietly, training a little bit, then go in the grand prix. When they're young, you've got to go up and down with them," he explained. "You can't put the gun to their head every day, or else they won't make 12 years old. Those horses are difficult to find, so when you have a good one, you have to look after them."

For their win today, Skelton and Carlo 273 were awarded the Wellington Cup, which was established in 1998 by the Village of Wellington. The fifth week of the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival, sponsored by Spy Coast Farm, runs from February 10-14, 2010, and will feature the $150,000 FEI World Cup™ Grand Prix, CSI 3*, presented by Spy Coast Farm, on Saturday, February 13, at 7 p.m.

Wellington , FL (USEF) – Having convincingly won the Grand Prix at the 2010 Exquis World Dressage Masters on Thursday afternoon, the pressure was on Steffen Peters to continue his winning tear with Ravel. But unfortunately for the US fans, it was a repeat of 2009 and he still couldn’t eclipse Anky van Grunsven and her Olympic champion Salinero. The reigning Gold medalist wowed the fans with a classic fault-free performance and a score of 84.4% for the Netherlands. Last year she won with Painted Black – but in 2010 it was Salinero’s time to shine.

 “For me the practice yesterday evening with the crowds and arena,” said van Grunsven about the difference in her horse since Thursday. “He gets a bit nervous with the atmosphere but yesterday he really settled down. He concentrated, but the Grand Prix I was happy as well but tonight everything worked out how it should be and I’m really, really pleased.”

 The classy 16-year-old Dutch veteran was flawless in his performance and his reign in the dressage world has spanned the better part of the decade.

 “I’m very proud,” said van Grunsven. “He’s already at the highest level for six years and he’s still a happy horse, he likes to compete and likes the training.”

 Ravel is still coming into his own, and the 12-year-old Dutch gelding owned by Akiko Yamazaki’s Four Winds Farm dazzled the crowd at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center with a serious degree of difficulty in his freestyle. Flying changes performed with Peters only riding with one hand, a canter pirouette into piaffe and passage half-pass highlighted a test that perfected will be one for the ages. To music by the Rolling Stones and Coldplay, the pair rocked the arena, a contrast to van Grunsven’s classical medley composed for her freestyle.

 “He’s been feeling pretty solid in the changes,” said Peters. “So I thought I would try one hand – I didn’t quite have the guts to do it in the one-tempis but in hindsight maybe I should have… I will try it next time.”

 Ravel was thriving in the atmosphere and was a little frisky in the wind and cool temperatures. It were those moments that perhaps cost him the win, but his score of 81.7% left him comfortably in second place and he took home a check of $20,700.

 “It’s a little strange you would expect him to be more excited in an arena like Las Vegas but he’s more relaxed,” said Peters. “I knew I had a little more horse in there, he did a great job and I’m vey, very proud of him.”

The 2009 USEF Horse and Rider of the Year have been winning at a very rapid pace since their victory at the 2009 FEI World Cup Final in Las Vegas, they followed that up with a sweep of the CDIO Aachen and then a win in the Grand Prix on Thursday – the freestyle proved that the pair is indeed, mortal.

 “I was a little careful into the first piafffe, and that wasn’t very good,” said Peters. “But the rest of the test was very, very good.”

 Isabell Werth and Satchmo rounded out the top three on a score of 78.9%, meaning the three of the very best Dressage in the world went head-to-head-to-head again.  Peters is realistic about the upcoming 2010 Alltech World Equestrian Games and his expectations for his wonderful horse.

 “It’s a big mistake if you start riding the score,” said Peters. “You have to ride your horse, Ravel

Eight riders contested the Grand Prix Special on Saturday afternoon – and Leslie Morse and Tip Top, who are the reigning Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF National Grand Prix Dressage Champions, won convincingly on a score of 66.042% over Canada’s Belinda Trussell. 

 Morse recovered from an atypical performance in Thursday’s Grand Prix and was thrilled with the improvement – the classy 16-year-old Swedish Warmblood looked supple and strong in his test on Saturday. “I was a little rusty (on Thursday),” said Morse after a seven month break from competition. “You forget how far you have to go and how hard you have to try, to be honest. I wish I could redo the Grand Prix. Having one class under my belt, I had to step up.”

 Step up she did. Tip Top’s excellent canter work and powerful movement got him big scores throughout the majority of the test, but a mistake at the end, meant a winning mark wasn’t as high as it could have been. Morse momentarily lost her concentration in the walk and then took a few movements to get it back, luckily Tip Top carried on confidently.

 “I needed a little more breath to get organized,” said Morse. “They were big errors for me, and it’s not normal to make them for me.”

 Morse owns Tip Top with Laura Petroff and picked the Grand Prix Special to practice the technical aspect that isn’t called on in the Freestyle.

 “Tip Top and I need to practice our technical side, that’s what we wanted to do here,” said Morse.

Quality Road Breaks His Own Record

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Timed to Perfection at Bordeaux

BORDEAUX, (FEI) - Germany's Marcus Ehning has won a few Rolex watches in his time, but he has rarely had to work harder for one of the exquisite time-pieces than he did tonight when winning the tenth qualifying leg of the 2009/2010 Rolex FEI World Cup™ Jumping series at Bordeaux in France.  At the end of the toughest competition of the series to date, where the course proved too much for the vast majority, Ehning went into a two-way jump-off against fellow-countryman Philipp Weishaupt.  And despite all his enormous experience, the man who was first to wear the new green and gold armband as leading rider in the Rolex World Rankings when it was first introduced last December, had to ride for his life to win by the miniscule margin of one-hundredth of a second with Leconte.

CHALLENGING ENOUGH
Course designer Frank Rothenberger thought he had built a challenging enough track at Leipzig two weeks ago, but it didn't turn out that way when 16 horse-and-rider combinations went through to the jump-off won by Ireland's Jessica Kuerten.  So this time around he was determined there should be no more than the ideal seven or eight in the second-round decider.  However once again it didn't work out the way he expected.

This was the toughest of tracks, and although the eventual winner described it as "very fair" he was the only one of the eight riders from the top-eleven on the latest Rolex Rankings list to find his way home without incident.  Switzerland's Pius Schwizer came into the ring wearing the coveted No. 1 armband after taking over at the top of the new rankings which were published two days ago, but it was a measure of the toughness of this course that Ulysse, that horse that took him to team gold at last summer's European Championships in Windsor, Great Britain returned an eight-fault result. 

TRICKIEST
The first of their two fences down was the trickiest on the 13-fence track, a massive triple bar which proved the undoing of many as the horses struggled to find the power to reach the back bar after a right-hand turn off the top of the arena.  The treble, at fence four and therefore a big test early on, also proved a major challenge and many horses arrived down the final line looking a little bewildered and leaving a lot of timber on the ground behind them.

German ace Ludger Beerbaum decided to call it a day when it all went wrong at fence seven where the stallion Couleur Rubin crashed through the poles after a muddle about the distance to this vertical.

Weishaupt's clean-jumping stallion Catoki made it all look pretty elementary however when returning the first zero score when 18th of the 37 starters into the ring.  The 12 year old Holsteiner, owned by Kai Gerken, is a big power-house of a horse and yet had the athleticism and concentration to avoid all the pitfalls on his way around.  With just eight to go it seemed he might just win the class outright and without challenge, but then Ehning produced an equally crafty tour of the arena with Leconte to ensure at least a two-way jump-off.  Despite the best efforts of the remaining seven that was exactly what it would be.

DOOR OPEN
Weishaupt wasn't hanging around as he headed out first against the clock, but a fence down in 39.36 seconds left the door open for Ehning, so as the double Rolex FEI World Cup champion went through the start it seemed a steady clear would clinch it.  But when Leconte also faulted at the halfway stage then Ehning had to radically alter his plan - "I really had to go for it over the last four jumps!" he said afterwards.  He went into over-drive and galloped down to the final oxer like his life depended on it, and, to his delight, found the clock showing 39.36 seconds - just 0.1 quicker than his German team-mate.

"This was a tough one to win" he admitted afterwards.  "It was a really tough course - everything came up so quickly and the oxers were big and wide in the first round.  With me for sure this is the biggest win with Leconte - I'm very happy with him" he added.  He got the horse, which competed for Australia at the Olympic Games in Hong Kong in 2008 with Matthew Williams in the saddle, at the beginning of last year.  "He did a few good things with me last season and he went well in the German Classics but this is definitely his best result so far" he pointed out.  And he added "I've been in close finishes before, but it can't get any closer than this!".

He has now pushed long-standing leader Eric Van der Vleuten of The Netherlands out of top spot on the series leaderboard while Weishaupt has moved into third ahead of Schwizer in fourth ahead of the next leg at Vigo in Spain next Saturday night.

The next leg of the 2009/2010 Rolex FEI World Cup™ Jumping series will take place at Vigo, Spain from 11-14 February.  For all information on the Spanish fixture check out website www.csivigo.com or contact Press Officer Alejandra Mier Rodirguez at (mobile) +34 669 718 736 or (email) amier@csivigo.com.