Taylor Land and Liroy 30 ©TIEC.
Mill Spring, NC – August 8, 2019 – Taylor Land (Atlanta, GA) landed in the money with all three of her mounts after Thursday’s $5,000 Horseware Ireland Welcome Stake at Tryon International Equestrian Center (TIEC) at Tryon Resort, piloting Liroy 30 to victory in a time of 30.598 seconds to kick off Tryon August 1 competition at the venue. Just behind in second, Land and Falco V, the Pinetree Farms Inc. entry, cleared the short-course in 30.872 seconds, while Allen Nabors Jr. (Odessa, FL) achieved third place with Bon Chatsworth Pierre, owned by Allen Nabors and Jessie Grabowski, stopping the jump-off timers in 31.827 seconds.
Fifteen horse-and-rider pairs challenged the track set by J. P. Godard (Aiken, SC), with five returning for the jump-off. Land, who has had consistent success as a competitor at TIEC and also collected eighth aboard Get Go, attributed long strides and talented horses to her winning result. “I had my three best horses in this class today,” she explained. “Get Go is seven, Falco [V] is nine, and Liroy [30] is ten. They’re all such fantastic horses – all in a little bit different stages of life – but they’re all so special.
“I think with all three of them I have a little bit of an advantage in the sense that they’re all really careful and quick in front, and they all have huge strides,” Land assessed. “It’s easy to leave strides out that way – I can do leave-outs without taking big risks. Today I really wanted to be just smooth and forward in the jump-off. There was a potential inside turn after the first jump, but it was pretty aggressive [of a turn] for the first day, and I wanted them to feel ready for Saturday, so I actually went around and just went really forward,” Land revealed. “I did a few [stride] leave-outs, and then one tighter turn back to the last line. I just wanted to try to stay smooth with an even rhythm to prepare for the Grand Prix.”
Despite taking the longer track on course, Land admitted that she ultimately had to steady her long-strided mounts and still made quick time over the course, especially with Falco V: “Falco was on such a massive stride today that the leave-outs were really steady for him, actually! So, that walked a little differently than it rode, but overall I thought the course rode about how I walked it. It was a great track, and a great start for the week.”
For more information and results, please visit www.Tryon.com.