Harrisburg, Pa.—Oct. 15

It was a battle for the regular conformation title and that battle came down to two horses owned by Betsee Parker, Lucador ridden by Scott Stewart and Cold Harbor ridden by Hunt Tosh.

When the dust settled, it was Lucador who came out on top, but Cold Harbor wasn’t far behind. The Tosh-ridden entry won both over fences class yesterday but was relegated to second behind Lucador in all classes today to finish in the reserve slot.

“It was sort of fun day,” said Stewart. “I didn’t really expect this–Hunt won both yesterday; his horse went great today. So I was planning on him being champion really; I was just thinking I was going to be reserve. It was nice, both horses are owned by Betsee, so it worked out great. It worked out a little bit better for me than it did for Hunt, but I would have been happy either way.”

Stewart of Flemington, N.J. began riding the Oldenburg at Capital Challenge (Md.) in 2013 during his pre-green season and since then the gelding has been a force to be reckoned with in the conformation hunters. He’s straight off a division championship from Capital Challenge and before that, he took the grand title at the Hampton Classic after sweeping the division.

Stewart also won the leading rider award.

Boss Pushes His Way To The Top

You don’t have to be a math whiz to know that Boss was going to walk away with the division championship in the green conformation hunters. He won every class except one. A rub in the second over fences of the day gave him a single yellow ribbon amid his sea of blue.

“You’ve got quite a lot of socks,” remarked trainer Archie Cox as rider John French exited the ring following the under saddle. The winner of each class throughout the show has earned a pair of 70th anniversary socks to commemorate the win, so French will head back to California with quite a collection to add to his wardrobe.

Cox described Boss as “a good example of the American hunter system.”

The gelding owned by Laura Wasserman started his hunter career (he was previously a dressage horse) in the pre-green incentive program and was second in the 2014 championship with French before taking the reserve here in the 3’3″ pre-green before moving up to the first year greens and the green conformation hunters this season.

“He’s a super fantastic horse,” said Cox. “Confident, brave, quiet, scopey. He’s everything that you want. He has desire, ability and beauty, and those are the three qualities of a top show horse.”

For French, the highlight of Boss’s trip east this year was his blues in both the first year green and the green conformation handy classes.

“He wasn’t the easiest to steer in the handies, but now he’s gotten so much better at steering that he won the handy in both divisions,” said French. “It’s a team thing with Archie and myself.  I mostly just meet him at the shows, but it’s nice being back here because I can focus on him and ride him every day where when I’m on the West Coast I just ride him at the shows because I live in San Francisco, [Calif.] and Archie lives in Los Angeles so I didn’t get to ride him. Here and Capital Challenge I’ve been able to ride him every day so I think it helped.”