Beatrice Daviault of St. Damase, QC, won the $5,000 Modified Grand Prix, presented by Greenhawk, to close out the two-week Ottawa Summer Tournaments on Sunday, July 16, 2023, at Wesley Clover Parks in Ottawa, ON.
It was a classic case of the student beating the teacher as the 23-year-old Daviault went head-to-head with her trainer, François Lamontagne, in a two-horse jump-off. Daviault was first to return for the tie breaker riding her partner of five years, Levaro Z. The pair were looking good until they missed their distance coming home to the final fence, resulting in a score of four faults in a time of 41.10 seconds.
Lamontagne of Saint Eustache, QC, knew exactly what he had to do to win but when a rail fell at the ‘b’ element of the double combination for a four-fault penalty, he turned on the gas in an effort to beat Daviault’s time. He was close, but not close enough, stopping the clock in 41.12 seconds to narrowly miss out on the win riding Tinka’s Soldier, an 11-year-old Canadian Sport Horse gelding (Tinka’s Boy x Graphix) that was bred by Bob Henselwood and is owned by Groupe Zacar Inc.