Ashton And Dobbin Seize A Small CCI*** Lead

And a dramatic shuffle occurs in the two-star division.

Corinne Ashton left a trail of blood behind her on the CCI*** cross-country course today, June 13, but as it was coming from her lip and not her horse Dobbin, she didn’t even consider letting it slow her down. And that determination for speed landed her on top of the leaderboard this afternoon, as she added just 1.6 time faults to her dressage score for a current mark of 51.6.

“I made one mistake,” said Ashton, Princeton, Mass. “I asked him to move up to a little oxer, and he knew better and took a short one, and it ended up a messy jump. I caught my lip on his neck. But then I picked myself up, and from then on I did as he suggested. I think there was blood flying off behind me, but that’s OK.”

“We did jump the high side of the brush at the coffin, just for fun,” she added. “But apart from that it was completely uneventful, which is good.”

Ashton had planned to run Dobbin, her 14-year-old Thoroughbred gelding, at the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** in April, and they did start the event, but a pulled back muscle forced her to withdraw. She couldn’t find any fix to get her around the cross-country.

“Nothing would work to get rid of the pain, and it wasn’t fair to [Dobbin],” she said. “He would have tried and done it for me, but I wasn’t prepared to hurt him.”

Dobbin contested his first CCI* at Bromont nine years ago and hadn’t been back since, so Ashton felt it was the perfect time to return to Quebec.

Unfortunately, Ashton’s move up from third after the dressage was partially due to the misfortune of overnight leaders Tiana Coudray and Ringwood Magister, who withdrew this morning, erring on the side of caution on a slight veterinary issue. Second-placed Mara Dean and High Patriot incurred 6.4 time faults to drop to fourth (61.3).

But one of only two double-clear rounds in the division sent Hawley Bennett and Gin N Juice into the runner-up spot. They’re just .3 faults behind Ashton in the standings (51.9), so the pressure will be on tomorrow in the show jumping.

“My ride was amazing,” Bennett, Temecula, Calif., said. “‘Ginny’ was great right from the get-go. She’s fast, but [in the past] I’d had to check her a little bit. But now I think the bigger fences back her off, so I don’t have to do as much work.

“I was actually a little nervous,” Bennett continued. “But I had a good warm-up, and that gave me a good feeling going in, and it ended up being probably one of my best rides ever. She was like a little sports car. I’m so proud of her.”

Linda Paine owns the 9-year-old Thoroughbred mare, and Bennett has brought her up through the levels. Their road to a CCI*** has been a long one with several detours, stretching from Southern California to New Jersey to Quebec.

“That horse has taught me patience,” Bennett said. “I’ve been to the hospital three times.”

The most recent of those hospitalizations came at the Jersey Fresh CCI*** (N.J.) last month, when Ginny jumped Bennett out of the tack early on the cross-country, and the rider had to ride off the course in an ambulance. Her injuries weren’t serious enough to keep her from re-routing to Bromont, however, and today it seemed her weeks of flying back and forth between the east and west coasts in preparation had paid off.

“She’s been a work in progress, but today she was unbelievable,” Bennett said. “I’m so happy.”