Richie Moloney rode Merqusio to victory in the $100,000 1.45m FEI Grand Prix to culminate the Split Rock Jumping Tour’s (SRJT) new event, the Aiken International CSI2*. The event, the first CSI ever held at Bruce’s Field at the Aiken Horse Park, proved to be a smashing success.
“We really couldn’t be happier with how everything went here this week,” said Derek Braun, Split Rock Jumping Tour founder and CEO. “Aiken is a premier horse community and the Horse Park is one of the finest horse show facilities anywhere. They deserve to host world-class show jumping and we are thrilled to have brought it here with this new stop on our national tour!”
Out of a starting field of 43 horses, Moloney was one of four to reach the tiebreaking jump-off by riding without penalty over the13-jump, first-round course designed by 2016 Olympic course designer Guilherme Jorge. Four entries then turned in another clean round over the seven-jump, jump-off course with Moloney claiming the win with the fastest time of 37.260 seconds. Placing second was Abigail McArdle with zero faults and a time of 37.930 on Victorio 5 with third going to Doug Payne who finished with zero faults in 39.280 seconds on Quintessence. Top Canadian was Sean Jobin aboard Darius, who grabbed 5th spot.