Ottawa, ON—Olympian Selena O’Hanlon of Elgin, ON, was the top Canadian rider at the 2009 edition of the CCI 4* Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event, held April 23-26, at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, USA, the site of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.
O’Hanlon, 28, riding her 2008 Olympic mount Colombo, a 14-year-old Swedish Warmblood gelding, owned by Elaine and Michael Davies, performed an outstanding dressage test, scoring 48.2 for 13th place. The pair then navigated the Michael Etherington-Smith’s (GBR) cross country course where none of the obstacles proved to be a problem, and they crossed the finish line with no jumping faults, but 20 time faults, which put them in 23rd spot heading in to the show jumping round. The pair finished in 20th place overall after incurring four jumping faults for a final score of 72.2 overall.
“I was really pleased with my dressage test,” said O’Hanlon. “The cross country footing was awesome, and the organizers have done a lot of work preparing the track. The course was tricky, but I was very determined to go clean, although I am a bit disappointed with the 20 time penalties. A special thanks to David O’Connor (the Canadian Eventing International Technical Advisor) for being a super coach.”
Finishing in 29th place at their first Rolex was Diana Burnett and Manny, Burnett’s and John and Nadia Lennox’s nine-year-old Canadian Thoroughbred gelding. Burnett, 27, of Blackstock, ON, was in 22nd following dressage with a score of 52.7. Adding 20 jumping and 15.6 time penalties on cross-country and eight jumping faults in the show jumping round, Burnett finished in with a score of 96.3.
2008 Canadian Olympic Eventing Team member Kyle Carter, of Calgary, AB, and now based in Sparr, FL, rode Madison Park, an 11-year-old Thoroughbred gelding owned by Carter and Nicole Shinton, finished in 33rd spot, with a score of 107.6. With penalty points of 58.8 after dressage, Carter had one 20 jumping and 20.8 time penalties on cross-country, adding eight faults in show jumping.
The winner of the 2009 Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event was Lucinda Fredericks, representing Australia, riding her 2008 Olympic mare Headley Britannia, with a score of 32.3. German Olympic rider Bettina Hoy and Ringwood Cockatoo finished in second place with 38.4, and Bruce Davidson Jr., of the United States, finished in third place, scoring 40.2, riding My Boy Bobby.
The CCI 4* Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event is part of the newly formed HSBC FEI Classics™, a series uniting the top end international Eventing circuit—namely the five 4–star eventing competitions currently held in the world. Full results are available on the official Rolex Kentucky Event web site www.rk3de.org.
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