(c) ESI Photography. Callan Solem and Horseshoe Trail Farm LLC’s VDL Wizard jump their way to a $50,000 HITS Grand Prix victory.
Ocala, Florida (February 1, 2015): Course designer Danny Foster of Milton, Ontario gave the entries in Sundays $50,000 Hits Grand Prix a daunting course of 17 efforts and a time allowed that took no mercy. Only two riders jumped clear within the allotted time to advance to the jump-off: winner Callan Solem on Horseshoe Trail Farm LLC’s VDL Wizard and Tracy Fenney on MTM Farm’s MTM Centano.
Solem, of Glenmoore, Pennsylvania, had two rides in the class, and, as the seventh to attempt the course, she and VDL Wizard, were the first to finish without a fault. It took 17 more entries before a jump-off was assured, when Tracy Fenney of Flower Mound, Texas, aboard MTM Centano also went clean. In the jump-off, Solem and VDL Wizard rode beautifully and finished with a clear round in a time of 49.739 to put the pressure on Fenney. Fenney planned to leave out a stride between fence 6 and 7a, but her horse’s huge stride got her there too early and he had a rail. Fenney chose to retire after the rail, and Solem claimed the victory with VDL Wizard while her other horse, VDL Torlando, finished fifth.
Solem said of VDL Wizard, “I’m just so lucky to have this horse to ride. He’s such a special horse. It’s so nice on these winter circuits to have the opportunity to jump courses by different course designers and they all ask different questions and you come out with a really produced horse. I’ve had this horse since he was a 7-year-old but he’s really just gotten into top form in the last nine months or so. I knew he was ready for a win.”
Fenney said she had planned to leave out a stride between fence 6 and 7a and commented after the class, “I did the seven in the first round and planned the six in the jump-off. I put a little curve in it but not enough and got there too early and had the rail. He just covers so much ground.”
MTM Centano owner Mike McCormick, of MTM Farm in Flower Mound, Texas, said, “It was a big hard class. A lot of lines you had to come back in. Some were long and flat; a couple were really tight. It provided a lot of questions and the questions always had to be answered by a really, really careful horse that had to be scopey. The slowdown five after the triple to the giant oxer really called on your horse’s scope.”
Haley Gassel of Lenoir City, Tennessee, riding Westwind Equine Training Center’s Quite Dark 2, finished with just one time fault but in a time of 91.244 in the first round to earn third place.
Sulu Rose Reed from Mechanicsville, Virginia, riding her own Envy, went first in the class with no jumping faults but was also just over the time allowed for one time fault in 91.559 seconds and fourth place. “I started out over the first three jumps a little slow. I was a little cautious on the turn from one to two,” she said.
Laura Linback Wins $7,500 U-Dump Jr/Am Classic Again
Laura Linback scored back-to-back wins on Whitaker MVNZ in the Ocala Horse Properties Stadium at the HITS Ocala Winter Circuit $7,500 U-Dump Jr/Am Classic Sunday, finishing first in the class two weeks in a row.
Five horses out of 13 jumped clean around the first round track designed by Danny Foster, of Milton, Ontario, Canada. Linback was in the catbird seat, going last in the jump-off. No one had been clean yet, and Linback rode slow and steady with Whitaker MVNZ to finish with no faults and clinch the win in 47.915 seconds.
“It was just the luck of the draw,” Linback said. “With no one else clear I could nurse my way around. It’s been a great week here at HITS. I won the Medium Amateur Jumper Classic, too, for the second week in a row. My hunter was champion and I was fifth in the SmartPak Grand Prix on Thursday with HH Dauphin.”
Whitaker MVNZ (which stands for Mountain View, New Zealand) is a Dutch Warmblood, bred by Wendy Kedell who imported his dam from Europe. She keeps in close touch on his career with the Linbacks, she said.
Second place in the class went to Unique, owned and ridden by MacKenzie McGehee, of Jacksonville, Florida, with the fastest four-fault trip in 43.421. Third was Valentina 156 and Alex Parrish of Midway, Kentucky, also with four faults but just a touch slower in 46.660. Rounding out the top five was Via Dolorosa owned by Derek Petersen and ridden by Jared Petersen of Archer, Florida, with eight faults and a fast time of 45.734 for fourth, and Quirant with Hayley Waters from Sparr, Florida with16 faults and a time of 57.379 for fifth.
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