OCALA, Fla.--Australia’s Sharn Wordley on Hagelin won the $75,000 Grand Prix in a six horse jump-off on Saturday, Feb. 10 at HITS.
Sharn Wordley on HagelinWordley rode three of the 24 horses that competed in the Grand Prix over a course set by Martin Otto of Germany, and he was clean on both Hagelin and Brin D’or de Haute Melen Z.
“Hagelin is extremely fast so I did one less stride than everyone else from fences two to three on the rollback,” said Wordley. “He's very efficient in the air and quick off the ground, but this was his first grand prix.”
“Hagelin was a little cheeky there when we started,” he said of the horse's first round. “We went through the flags five seconds after the timer had started, so I had to jump the first round like a Table A just to squeak into the time allowed. I was really lucky."
“I’ve got the best string of horses I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “Better late than never!”
André Thieme of Germany was just over a second slower than Wordley’s winning time of 43.43 seconds as he placed second on Candid 14, and Scott Keach of Australia on Cencorinue PS, was third, clean in 46.37 seconds.
Earlier in the week, young rider Madison Kondracki won the $15,000 Open Speed class on E Storm Cat and now leads on the overall leaderboard by a whopping 21 points.
ON SUNDAY, from a first round field of 27, Andrew Ross on Cornet’s Cobalt won the $24,500 Jumper Classic with the only clear round in the four horse jump-off..
“A track like today really suits my horse well because, where there were options, I was actually holding him for the leave out,” Ross said. “He’s very brave, and pretty careful, but very big strided. Most of the time I just do the jump off striding in the first round because it's more suitable for him.”
Without much competition across the short course, Ross changed his original plan for the jump off to something a bit more conservative.
“For the jump off my original plan was to leave out the stride from the Horseflight jump to the one stride combination,” he said. “I know my horse could easily get there in six strides but whether he was able to leave up the second element of the combination would’ve been the risk. When I heard that I was the only clear round, I switched my plan to do seven strides which got tight for me because of his big step, but we wiggled our way through."
“There were a lot of bending lines to combinations with striding options today,” he said. “I thought that was a good choice by the course designer considering how many good horses and riders were on the field.”
Caelinn Leahy had the fastest four-fault time in the jump off on Zarkava., stopping the clock seven seconds ahead of Ross’s time of 39.41 seconds, but he placed second with the rail down.
Tim Maddrix on Quina Blue PS, landed two seconds behind Leahy in 34.52 seconds but a rail down placed him third
