SAUGERTIES, NY (June 11, 2005)—The Rolex/USEF $30,000 Intermediate Match, the second leg of the $150,000 Rolex/USEF National Show Jumping Championship was won by Jimmy Torano riding Marcel, an eleven-year-old, 17H, chestnut, Belgian Warmblood gelding. Torano took second place in the first leg of the Championship, and his first place finish on Friday puts him at the top of the standings going into the last round. The Grand Finale of the Championship will take place on Sunday, June 12, when 19 riders will compete for a purse of $100,000 and the title of Rolex/USEF National Show Jumping Champion.
Delighted with the three-day format for this event, Jimmy Torano was quoted as saying, “It was a great class, and it’s nice that Tom stepped up to the plate and gave us a class like this. We don’t normally jump over several days. The Europeans compete in competitions like this all the time. We keep saying we want to beat the Europeans and so we need more competitions like this. People now know that he did it, so hopefully Tom will continue to run it because we need Championships. It’s a great idea.”
Jeffrey Welles, another top contender for the Championship title, rode Armani to a second place finish in the $30,000 Intermediate Match. Third place went to Caitlyn Shiels aboard Memphis. Shiels, who won an Individual Gold Medal at the 2004 North American Young Riders’ Championships, is a show jumping star on the rise. She celebrated her 22nd birthday in the Grand Prix ring at HITS, and what better gift than a finish that ranks her third overall in the Championship standings. Please see complete standings listed below.
Course designer Steve Stephens set a challenging 13-obstacle first round course that narrowed the field to nine horses in the timed jump-off. Six of the jump-off horses had rails down--reflecting, perhaps, the fact that Stephens had raised most of the jumps between the first round and the jump-off. It was Caitlyn Shiels who posted the first clear round aboard Memphis. Shiels went into the class thinking, “just go around, don’t do anything crazy.” Caitlyn trains with Andre Dignelli and their plan was for her to go tight into the Rolex jump, but at the last minute, when she saw she was going clear she made a wide turn to canter to the fence which Memphis cleared with ease. Her careful time of 41.75 seconds gave her third place.
Jeffrey Welles and Armani were next to attempt the course. Welles turned up the speed, powering through the course to finish in 37.73 seconds with all the rails in place.
Last to jump, Jimmy Torano had to be fast to catch Welles. Knowing that Welles' horse was faster across the ground, Torano decided to leave out some strides, which he was easily able to do because even though Marcel is not as fast, he’s got a very long stride. At the beginning and the end of the jump-off round Marcel did six strides where Armani had done seven, and that shaved 6/10ths of a second off Welles' time for the win.
Kent Farrington had the fastest time of the competition with Madison. The speedy mare took him around the course in 35.23 seconds, but an unlucky rail at the first obstacle meant he had to settle for fourth place.
The Grand Finale of the Championship will take place on Sunday, June 12th at 1pm. With points converted to faults for the final leg, the field is still tight, promising a very exciting finish to the Championship.
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