Greg Crolick and Carson on their way to a win in the $10,000 USHJA Hunter Derby at HITS Ocala (ESI Photography)
Forty-one riders converged on HITS Ocala under picture-perfect skies to ride for serious prize money and prestigious honors. Highlighted in the Main Hunter Ring, riders took to a course designed by Tim Hott in front of two panels of judges. In the second-to-last trip of the first round, Crolick and Carson earned a score of 170. After a first-round cutoff of 160.5 was established, they were one of 12 to return for the second round.
Returning first, Harold Chopping of Southern Pines, North Carolina earned a 186 to set the bar for the riders to follow. He piloted Caroline Russell Howe’s Caramo.
Crolick returned in the third spot and floated over ten fences with Carson to the stunned reaction of an on looking crowd with a score of 196. None would come close to trumping Crolick’s overall score of 366, until he returned for his second appearance in the irons of Adrienne Marciano’s Grey Street. Riding to a 191, he earned a total score of 365 and had both first and second place locked down.
Morgan Ward of Milford, New Jersey finished third with a total score of 355 aboard TeriAnn Miller’s Manhattan, which was good enough for third. Chopping and Caramo had a total of 346.5 for fourth. Canadian rider Darcy Hayes earned a total score of 346 to cap the top five.
$5,000 Devoucoux Hunter Prix
Mary Lisa Leffler and Zivago on their way to a win in the $5,000 Devoucoux Hunter Prix at HITS Ocala (ESI Photography)
“I was never able to walk the course and I was a little deep to one fence in the first round,” said Leffler who recently started riding Zivago, a 9-year-old Warmblood gelding, again. She started him as a first and second year before he was sold, and he was brought back under Leffler’s direction after Fione purchased him. “He knows his job and I am always able to just get right on and let him do his thing.”
Despite what she called a shaky first round, Leffler admits that the second round was just about perfect. “When I got to the ring for the second round, I had no idea where I stood. I never really got the canter that I wanted in the first round, so I figured if I could establish that right away, everything else would fall into place, and it did.”
Leffler rode to a first round score of 84 over a course designed by Doug Russell and sat second going into the final round. She combined that with an 88 to take first place with a final score of 172. Leading the first round with a score of 87, Patty Stovel of Chester Springs, Pennsylvania earned an 84 in the second for second place, just shy of Leffler’s score with a two-round total of 171.
Kristi Smith of Madison, Connecticut finished third aboard Marianne Huss’s Cameron with a two round score of 166.5. Capping the top five was Jennifer Tate of Bourne, Massachusetts in fourth with Barbara Kravetz’s Cavallino, and Crolick in fifth aboard Clover Lane Farm, LLC’s Beyond Belief.
$1,500 HITS Hunter Prix
Corinne Milbury of Boston, Massachusetts topped the $1,500 HITS Hunter Prix this weekend, a qualifier for the HITS $250,000 Hunter Prix Final as part of HITS Championship Weekend in Saugerties, New York this fall. She piloted her own Kavalier to the winning two-round total of 169 over a course designed by Timmy Hott.
Milbury was followed by Pittsford, New York’s Meghan Kaupp and Serenity Farm’s Q in second with a score of 167.5. Charlene Graham of Fairport, New York piloted her own Only You to a score of 165, good enough for third. Rounding out the top five was Carly Corbacho of Wellesley, Massachusetts aboard her own Blue Highway in fourth, and Caroline Connal of Simsbury, Connecticut in the irons of her own Worldly in fifth.