BEN MAHER WINS $125,000 FLORIDA GRAND PRIX, SCOTT BRASH CLOSE SECOND
Sunday 26 January 2014
Week three of the FTI WEF sponsored by Fidelity Investments, came to a close yesterday with British riders coming to the fore and dominating the sport once again. The FTI WEF, which is hosted at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Centre in Wellington features twelve weeks of top class competition awarding an incredible $8million in prize money.
With Scott Brash holding the No.1 spot on the Longines World Ranking List and having edged Ben Maher into the No.2 spot at the end of last year, spectators knew they were in for some fantastic riding when both riders secured themselves into the jump off of the final class for the week, the $125,000 Fidelity Grand Prix.
Joining Scott and Ben in flying the flag for Great Britain was Tim Gredley from Essex whom is now based in the United States with Unex Chamberlain Z. With only ten clears in the first round, it was a true testament of British Showjumpings world leading status that three of the riders were British from the strong field of forty five starters.
With the course prepared for the jump off, which had been designed by Brazilian Guilherme Jorge, and the riders coming forward in reverse order based on their time in the first round, Scott Brash and Hello Ursula XIII the 14 year bay mare owned by Lady Pauline Kirkham and Lady Pauline Harris were relatively early to go. Knowing he had a strong field behind him, Scott lay down the gauntlet by producing a clear in a fast time of 39.059 seconds hoping he had done enough to force other riders into making mistakes. Looking like his strategy had paid off, he watched from the side-lines as competitor after competitor notched up faults.
He would have known that Ben wasn’t going to let him take the class that easily though despite their friendship and team camaraderie. Both riders were on the London 2012 Gold Medal winning team in addition to the 2013 European Championship Team that saw them not only win a Gold Medal but also Ben an Individual Silver and Scott an Individual Bronze.
With Scott having produced the only double clear of the competition all eyes were on Ben when he rode into the arena with Jane F Clark’s 12 year-old grey mare Cella with whom he had competed so successfully at the European Championships last year. Having rested Cella recently, she looked as pleased to be back in the arena and focusing on the task ahead as Ben did to be back aboard her. Covering the ground as she does and with Ben keeping the pace up, they put in an absolutely foot-perfect and copybook round stopping the clock just a fraction of a second faster than Scott in a time of 36.688 seconds. Tim Gredley finished in 9th place having incurred an unfortunate 8 faults in a time of 45.0004.
With the Union Flag held high for the presentation ceremony and the world’s two highest ranked riders topping the line up it was superb to see British Showjumping once again at the forefront of everyone’s minds when it comes to the sport on a global level.
Talking afterwards Ben commented “Cella feels great, she’s at home here. She loves the Florida sunshine and she loves the arena. She’s had a bit of a rest to be fresh for this year and I’m very very happy with her. She is jumping fantastic and it’s great to be back competing her again. I am in a very lucky position, she’s an unbelievable horse.”
Referring to Scott’s round he furthered “ I knew Scott was going to push me, there was no way he was going to leave the gate open. I went and watched him go, I knew what I had to do and I pushed Cella hard across the ground without taking too many chances. I trusted that we had good timing and it all came together”.
RESULTS:
1st Ben Maher / Cella - 0/0/38.68
2nd Scott Brash / Hello Ursula – 0/0/39.05
3rd Alvaro de Miranda / Ad Norson – 0/4/39.61
4th McLain Ward / Rothchild – 0/4/40.06
5th Alexander Zetterman / Cafino – 0/4/41.46
6th Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum / Checkmate – 0/4/42.70
Photo : sportfot
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14kvaj7pl3106.jpg "Jonathan Egmore and Mollie Rose Smith are winners in the Equissage Pulse British Novice Second Rounds.")
1g50u2k8dpost.JPG "Lacey-Mae Russel seizes Victory in the STX-UK Pony British Novice Second Round at Felbridge Showground")
11dtw0hmsttk0.jpg "NAF Five Star Bronze and Silver League Qualifiers get underway at Speetley Equestrian Centre")