In their first class under the lights and on the eve of America’s Independence Day holiday, Kayla Savard (USA) and Bogota Nantuel broke a tie by nearly three seconds to win the $73,000 Cleghorn Golf & Sports Club Grand Prix CSI 2* at Tryon International Equestrian Center & Resort (TIEC), with a time of 36.653 seconds. The second-place tie was captured by two riders with a jump-off time of 39.02 seconds: Richie Moloney (IRL) and Coco Beach, a 2012 Holsteiner mare (Casall x Miss Marpel) owned by Equinimity LLC, and Victoria Heurtematte (PAN) and her own Flying Dutchman, the 2010 Dutch Warmblood stallion (Quasimodo Van De Molendreef x Burggraff).

Forty-one horse and rider combinations challenged the course designed by Andy Christiansen (ECU), with 13 pairs returning for the second round jump-off. Savard and her 2011 Selle Francais mare (Dollar Dela Pierre x Carnute) conquered the shortened course, going in with a third place standing and jumping to a first place win.

Savard praised her rookie mare for her efforts during the evening, sharing, “This is her first FEI class, and both of our first class under the lights! She’s awesome. She’s naturally so fast, so that’s how I was able to be so much faster. She just lands and goes!”

Advertisement