Showcase, Ltd., based in Canton, GA, ended their 2005 show season on a high note as owner-rider Terry Brown, partnered with her 11-year-old Hanoverian gelding Sequel, were awarded Farnam®/Platform™ USEF National Horse of the Year titles in Second Year Green Working Hunter, Regular Working Hunter and Horse of the Year Grand Champion in Regular Hunters. They seem to be headed right back to the top in 2006 as their winning continued with the championship in the Regular Working Hunter division for both weeks of the Atlanta Spring Classics.

Next up for Showcase, Ltd., and Brown is the Queen City Classic. “We’ve got our eye on the $100,000 Hunter Classic, with probably four horses going, but of course, our bullet horse is Sequel,” she said. Team Brown will then take a break before heading out in late April to Aiken, SC, and on to Lexington, KY, hoping to add to Sequel’s many chapters, although Brown joked the big debate at present was, “We normally take a 10 day vacation at the beach in May, but we’ve been thinking about Devon this year.” Then adds with a serious giggle, “We’ll just ask Sequel what he wants to do.”

Also repeating championships from the hunter divisions were Remedy with Daniel Geitner in the irons for owner Margaret Edge in the Second Year Green Working Hunters and Sinners Prayer with Russell Frey riding for owner Bridget Moseley in the Conformation Hunters. Hunt Tosh and Wellington, owned by Lee Cesery, took the tri-colors in the First Year Green Working Hunters.

In the grand prix arena the sequels continued as Joe Fargis and Diams III, owned by Mary B. Schwab, wrote another chapter on victory by winning this week’s Lucky Sevens Welcome Stake presented by Café Milano. A field of 41 nationally and internationally ranked horse-and-rider combinations took on course designer Michel Vaillancourt’s 14-obstacle layout of sweeping turns and big spreads with a generous time allowance of 83 seconds.

Diams and Fargis went double clear with a first round time of 78.93 seconds and a fast 35.328 seconds in the jump-off. Second place honors went to Oliver III, piloted by Judy Garofalo-Torres for owner High Ground Farms, with a second round time of 37.239 seconds. Jonathon Millar riding Vasco Van Westuur for owner Frank Highley took third place with a time of 37.312. Belynda Bond on board Sea Cove for owner Kim Semyan placed fourth in a time of 38.594 seconds and finishing up the top five was Costa Rica Z with owner-rider Amy Millar in a time of 38.599 seconds.

Owner-rider Wilhelm Genn of Lebanon, OH, claimed his sixth big victory of the season with Happy Z in the $25,000 Spring Atlanta Grand Prix presented by Bohicketchandlery.com.

At the finale of this two-week series, Mother Nature provided a farewell of sunshine and warm temperatures for the starting field of 36 in the highlighted event. Their track of 13 obstacles requiring 16 efforts was anything but a walk in the park. It included a few combinations, a wide triple bar, an oxer with a liverpool, high verticals and lots of turns and ideally to be completed clear in a mere 78 seconds. In the jump-off, a serpentine of seven obstacles in less than 45 seconds proved beating the clock would be the factor in winning.

Referring to his first clear first round performance in 76.564 seconds, Genn admitted, “The number 2 and 3 fence was my rough spot. While not a really difficult line, it turned out to be harder than I thought. My small one (Happy Z, the 8-year old Dutch Warmblood mare owned and piloted by Genn) jumped really high but landed slow with her nose really low and then turned hard to the left so I lost my four strides. I had to take back and add to do five strides into the next one. That turned out to be quite a bit of work!”

Coming into the second round Wilhelm had three mounts, all of which are in