Alison Robitaille and Cassinja cleared 1.80m in their final round. Photos © Sportfot.
Fernando Cardenas and Quincy Car Win $25,000 Suncast® 1.50m Championship Jumper Classic; Ali Tritschler and Exclusive Take Home Championship Honors in the EnTrust Capital Small Junior Hunters 16-17
Wellington, FL – January 10, 2015 – Nearly 4,000 spectators packed the house at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center (PBIEC) on Saturday night to watch the men and women duel for bragging rights as the winners of this year’s edition of the $75,000 Battle of the Sexes at the 2015 Winter Equestrian Festival. The women had won the competition for six consecutive years up to this point, but settled for a tie in the end after several demanding rounds of competition and a lot of exciting action.
Week one of the 2015 Winter Equestrian Festival concludes on Sunday, January 11, with the $30,000 WEF 1 Grand Prix. Held at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, FL, WEF features 12 weeks of world-class competition through March 29, awarding over $8.2 million in prize money.
Eric Hasbrouck is the course designer in the International Arena at PBIEC for week one competition and set the tracks for Saturday’s classes. In the highlight $75,000 Battle of the Sexes, the three-phase contest included speed rounds, match races, and a six-bar competition.
The women’s team was captained by Candice King and also included riders Erynn Ballard, Nicole Bellissimo, Amanda Derbyshire, Margie Engle, Abigail McArdle, Catherine Pasmore, Alison Robitaille, Debbie Stephens, and Kelsey Thatcher.
Charlie Jayne led the men’s team, which included riders David Beisel, David Blake, Daniel Bluman, Mark Bluman, Alex Granato, Angel Karolyi, Darragh Kenny, Samuel Parot, and Andrew Ramsay.
The first round of competition was the speed round, with a six to four win for the men. The match races followed, with the men and women competing side by side over identical courses and the faster rider winning a point for their team. The men were victorious again with a win, 6 points to 4, bringing the total to 12 to 8.
The final six-bar competition was the deciding factor of the evening. Four men and four women returned from each team with the opportunity to earn two points per clear round. The competition started at 1.60m (5’3″) in height with two clear rounds for the women and three clear rounds for the men, taking the tally up to 12 and 18. A second round was held with the final jump at 1.70m, where the women’s Alison Robitaille was the only rider to jump a clear round, taking her team’s score up to 14 versus the men’s 18.
Robitaille and her mount Cassinja then went on to jump two more clear rounds to help their team earn additional points. The pair easily cleared a four bar set up to 1.75m (5’7″) and then jumped one more clear round with the final fence at 1.80m (5’9″) to tie it up, 18-18.
A final tie-breaking round was held with one man and one woman from each team returning to jump the four bar one more time with the final jump set at a staggering 1.85m (6′). Alex Granato went first for the men riding Mullaghdrin Rado and Candice King returned for her team aboard Bugatti VDL, but both pairs had the top rail down at the final jump. The team captains conferred, and decided to remain tied and save their horses for another day.
Although both teams wanted to win, the riders were happy with their horses in the evening and agreed that the competition was a lot of fun. Alison Robitaille was competing in the class for the first time with her horse Cassinja and never thought she would end up jumping so many rounds for her team.
“I am really happy with my horse,” Robitaille stated. “She is my grand prix horse, but I don’t think that she has ever jumped that high. She has jumped one or two 1.60m rounds. She is just turning ten and she did a couple of bigger classes down here last year and then I broke my shoulder, so she had an easy rest of the year. I got her back in a couple of grand prix classes at the end of the year, but nothing of this caliber.”
“I was definitely not expecting to jump that many rounds. I thought we would do maybe two or three rounds and see how things went, but she felt great and she was jumping so well,” Robitaille said. “My competitiveness took over when it was just down to one more round to tie everything up.”
Commenting on the end result, Robitaille remarked, “It ended in a tie, but that is much better than losing. We will take a tie over a loss any day. This was my first year, and it was really fun. It is a nice class and a great way to get the crowd into it. It was a nice way for things to go and will hopefully bring people back for the following weeks.”
Along with jumping the final round for the men’s team with Mullagdhrin Rado, Alex Granato had a great evening aboard Zenith Dance, with the fastest round in the speed phase and an equally blazing time in the match races.
“Zenith Dance is a super horse. He is a fun speed horse,” Granato said of his speedy mount. “I ride for the owners, and they have been good supporters. I did that horse about a year and a half ago in some grand prixs as an up-and-coming horse and then he spent last year doing the junior jumpers with Maddy Darst on lease. Now we have him for sale and we just got him back, so this is my first week showing him again. He had only done regular speed classes and I don’t think he has ever been under the lights in a venue like this, but he was game. You can always count on him to be fast and he is very careful, so he is a fun one to do.”
Granato jumped in this class two years ago, but only did the first two phases, and he enjoyed taking part in the whole competition this year.
“I think it is a lot of fun,” he acknowledged. “It is great to get the teams together. It maybe got a little heated coming down to a tie this year, but it is a fun venue and it is fun to have the crowd that involved. I think it is a good way to start the circuit with the crowd coming out.”
Fernando Cardenas and Quincy Car Win $25,000 Suncast® 1.50m Championship Jumper Classic
The $25,000 Suncast® 1.50m Championship Jumper Classic was held on Saturday afternoon with 14 entries and a two-horse jump-off. Ben Maher and Jane Clark’s Sarena jumped first and cleared the short course in 35.47 seconds to take reserve honors. Fernando Cardenas and Quincy Car jumped next and took the leading time in 34.80 seconds. The rider explained that every win is special with the 11-year-old Oldenburg stallion, Quincy Car (Galiani Car x Amour Parfait), who is home bred by his father, Fernando Cardenas Sr. All of their home bred horses have the last name Car for the family name.
“One of the greatest pleasures that we have is to say that we have bred a horse and taken him to grand prix instead of ever having to buy a horse,” Cardenas stated after his win. “I have ridden him the whole time, so to me that is as big an accomplishment, to make a horse to grand prix, just as much as winning a grand prix. I think one phrase sums it all – a good horse makes anybody look good. I am very grateful to have a very special horse.”
Cardenas was born and raised in Colombia and has been living in this country for 27 years. While his father’s breeding and training business is based in Ocala, FL, he lives in Raleigh, NC throughout the year. Cardenas alternates his time in the winter between Wellington and Ocala.
“I have been coming here for three years straight, but I am a veterinarian and I have to work, so I can only come here for short periods of time,” he said of the Winter Equestrian Festival. “It is very cold back home, so we just come here and play a little bit. I enjoy the quality of the show here, to be able to show against top quality riders.”
Cardenas will continue to compete in Florida throughout the winter. He will then show at the new Tryon International Equestrian Center in North Carolina the rest of the year. “We went there last year, and we loved it,” he praised.
Ali Tritschler and Exclusive Take Home Championship Honors in the EnTrust Capital Small Junior Hunters 16-17
Despite little practice time together, Ali Tritschler, from South Port, CT, was able to guide Exclusive to the top of the pack. Yesterday was the pair’s first time in the ring together, and Tritschler was still getting used to the new mount. With one day behind them, the new pair was able to rise to the top. “Today he was unbelievable!” Tritschler smiled.
Exclusive, a nine-year-old Dutch Warmblood owned by Glenwillow Farm, won the stake and the under saddle along with a second in the first over fences class to take home the championship in the EnTrust Capital Small Junior Hunters 16-17.
The reserve champion was Victoria Press, riding her own horse Akinda. Press won the handy round yesterday and was second over fences and in the under saddle today.
Having been out of the show ring since June, Exclusive started where he left off, but this time as a small. Last year Exclusive was champion of the Large Junior Hunters at WEF, but with the height rule change, he now competes as a small. Even with the division change, Exclusive is still in winning form.
Trainer Kim Stewart was excited to see Exclusive shine in the show ring with a new rider. Called Blink at home because he is blind in one eye, it does not affect his show performance. Stewart stated, “He’s an amazing horse and the hack winner.”
Stewart also mentioned, “He [Exclusive] is so sweet on the ground, loves everything, and likes candy a lot!”
Tritschler was also happy to be back in the show ring at PBIEC, saying, “The rings are beautiful and the footing is great. This is my favorite place to show.”
Currently a student at Green Farms Academy, Tritschler flies back and forth to Florida on weekends to compete. She plans to come down several more weekends and hopes to continue to show Exclusive in future weeks. Along with competing in the hunter ring, Tritschler will also be competing in the equitation and junior jumper divisions.
WEF week one will conclude on Sunday with the $30,000 WEF 1 Grand Prix in the International Arena and the presentation of championship honors in the Bainbridge Companies Amateur-Owner Hunter 18-35 in the E. R. Mische Grand Hunter Ring. For full results and more information, please visit www.pbiec.com.
Lauren Fisher and Maddy Stover for Jennifer Wood Media, Inc.
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