Ward Wins USEF WEG Selection Trial 3 And Spooner Slides To The Top Of The WEG Selection Standings

Before the U.S. Equestrian Federation World Equestrian Games Selection Trials even began last week, McLain Ward had already secured a spot on the USEF World Equestrian Games Show Jumping Long List. But that couldn’t make him rest on his laurels.

Ward rode Rothchild to the top of the $40,000 USEF Selection Trial No. 3, today Mar. 3, boosting them to a tie for fourth in the USEF WEG Standings with 9 total faults. Richard Spooner and Cristallo now sit at the top of the standings after notching a single time fault today.

Rothchild jumped one of six double-clear rounds, stopping the timers the fastest (74.07 seconds) to take the biggest check, which Ward admitted wasn’t exactly on purpose.

“My horse felt great, but green,” said an enthusiastic Ward. “I had no choice by to go forward with his lack of experience. The fastest time wasn’t really an option—it just worked out!”

Guilherme Jorge’s imposing course, set on grass in the Stadium of the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Fla., caused far too many problems to have riders overly-concerned with the clock. Competitors may have breathed a sigh of relief to find the course without a triple combination—the bane of so many courses during last Saturday’s Trial No. 2—but three big doubles shed rails all class long.

On top of that, Mother Nature added her own challenge, with 20-mile-per-hour winds ripping across the field.

“You can't hear the horse gallop,” explained Ward. “You can't hear the rhythm of the stride. The sense of hearing is huge with a horse. You hear the gallop, the beat—riding is all about rhythm. You can't hear that. You can't even hear them touch the ground. I think the wind blowing in their face is very distracting. When you came across that middle line to the green vertical, it felt like you were going against a wall.”

While Rothchild isn’t Ward’s first pick as a WEG mount, (that honor falls to his superstar partner Sapphire, who was awarded a bye from the trials on Feb. 22), the 9-year-old stepped up to the plate despite his relative inexperience.

“He's a little bit of a funky horse,” said Ward, Brewster, N.Y. “He does it his own way, but his greatest asset is that he gets the idea to leave the jumps up. He's really gone well through these trials. I made a terrible mistake the first night [when Rothchild suffered a refusal], which is a shame because I don't think the horse has really had a jump down. It was just a screw up. It was great experience for him. I didn't go into the trials thinking he was the horse for the World Championships—obviously it's Sapphire. It'd be nice if he was in the mix, and maybe something for two years from now. If something happened to Sapphire and he was selected, or for some reason he just hit an incredible stride, but the plan is obviously Sapphire.”

Spooner took the pressure off himself after Trial No. 1 by deciding not to worry about the time allowed. His plan paid off after he and Cristallo put in a lovely but conservative clear to add 1 time fault to their cumulative total and climb to the top of the standings.