The WEC Grand Arena hosted an exhilarating Saturday night grand prix as 33 entries vied for the win in the $75,000 Golden Ocala Golf & Equestrian Club Grand Prix. The challenging tracks for Week I’s Saturday night grand prix were designed by Bobby Murphy. The track featured a tight time allowed, a tricky triple combination and The Equestrian Hotel wall. Six horse-and-rider combinations managed a clean first round, and only two jumped double clear, but it was Aaron Vale and Thinks Like A Horse’s Elusive that captured the top prize.

Aaron Vale is no stranger to World Equestrian Center – Ocala, bringing home nine Grand Prix wins in 2021. “Today, was a great start to the season. Elusive won the inaugural Grand Prix last winter and was given the first iconic NSBA horse head trophy. It’s so exciting to start the season off with another win.”

Vale and Elusive (Rodrigoo x Alouette) were the second pair on course, delivering a fast and smooth first round stopping the clock at 82.839 seconds, well within the time allowed of 85 seconds. “The course today was challenging. The time allowed was just short enough that you had to keep moving. The jumps went up to 1.50m, so it’s a little bigger than the summer. It asked some challenging questions from the start; the wall jump was fence number three which is quite a spooky fence. So that fence caught a few out, the combinations caught some horses and the tight time caught some riders, but that’s what a course is supposed to do.”

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