The $25,000 Palm Beach Equine Clinic Grand Prix took place Sunday to round out of Spring IV competition at Equestrian Village. Twenty-eight competitors took to the 13-obstacle course designed by Héctor J Loyola (PUR), with twelve returning for the tie-breaking jump-off. Aaron Vale (USA) and Constantin De Hus, owned by Sigma Stables, were the final to compete of the returning dozen, pulling out all the stops to take home the win.
The first clear round of the jump-off, setting the pace at a competitive 40.598 seconds, was Sheer Levitin (USA) and Vitus K. Vale managed to cut off just less than a second from that initial time-to-beat, setting the winning time at 39.963 seconds.
Vale mentioned that his partnership with Constantin De Hus is fairly fresh, sharing, “This is only our second show together. We won a Grand Prix a few weeks ago at another competition where we were the only pair clear in the jump-off. In that instance speed wasn’t the key concern, but today it certainly was. It was a great challenge for this horse as we have been focusing on turning ability over the past few weeks.”