Very rarely do competitors tie in a one-round speed class, but Canada’s Erynn Ballard and Israel’s Sydney Shulman did just that in the $36,000 Keystone Classic Speed Stake Friday night at the 2019 Pennsylvania National Horse Show (PNHS). Both went clear during their rounds and stopped the clock at an unbeatable 52.59 seconds.
Riding ninth in a field of 25, Ballard quickly surpassed early pacesetters with the blistering time of 52.59 seconds aboard Skymaster LLC’s Judge Hof Ter Zeedycke. No other competitor could catch that time as the class continued, until Sydney Shulman and Azilis Du Mesnil, owned by Jill Shulman, entered the ring as the eighteenth to go in the order.
“In a class like this when there are so few strides in between the jumps, it was pretty technical, which is why I think there was a tie,” Ballard said of the Michel Vaillancourt-designed course. “Basically through the entire course, you did no more than eight strides between the jumps. It makes it harder to go super fast, or much faster than somebody else. You have to be accurate – it’s how fast your horse is in the air, how easy they ride.”