Lexington, Ky.—Aug. 17

In 2015 Brunello became the first horse to win the USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship three times, and he did it with Liza Boyd. This year that record was matched when the Wheeler family’s Cannon Creek jumped to the top of the Platinum Performance/USHJA International Derby Championship for the third time of his career with Hunt Tosh up.

Tosh also made history today as he became the first rider to win the four times. (He won the class with Lone Star in 2010.) Tosh moved up from fourth to win over Boyd and Crooner Brimbelles Z, with Scott Stewart and Daydream moving up to third. Stewart also claimed the Tier II win.

After winning in 2021 and 2022, last year a rail in the first round kept Cannon Creek out of the running, but this year he nailed both rounds and soared over the final 4’9” oxer to win the round with scores as high as 95.

“It’s awesome to win four times,” said Tosh, Milton, Georgia. “Actually, Liza and I have been competing [against each other] for our entire lives and she won three in a row. I wanted to get three in a row last year but I didn’t, so now I have to do it two more times so I can catch her record.

The day wasn’t without its drama, however. First the was the weather. A three-hour long break interrupted the handy round as a violent storm blew through, just before the top 11 horses were to return for their trips. Strong gusts knocked over and destroyed a big tent over the owners’ area, and tables and garbage cans went flying. When the storm abated staff sprang into action to assess and fix the damage and reset parts of the course that had toppled over, and there were no reports of injuries. While other rings at the show were effectively underwater, the Sheila C. Johnson ring in the Rolex Arena drained out over the course of an hour, and competition resumed.

Then there were surprises on course. Yesterday’s winners Amanda Steege and Lafitte De Muze laid down a gorgeous round, then “Lafitte” spooked and scooted at the crowd’s raucous reaction after the last fence. Judges Rob Bielefeld, Shane George, Bob Crandall, William Sparks, Brian Lenehan and Mark Jungherr officiated over the class and disagreed on how to score the mistake. Lafitte scored an 80, a 94.5 and an 80 from the three panels, and she finished fifth overall. Yesterday’s second-placed Ondine D’Orleans ticked the last rail and had a few lead issues to fall out of contention, and regular derby contender Laskano, who came back in seventh, was eliminated after he stopped twice at the final oxer with Jimmy Torano. Dorrie Douglas took a tumble when MTM Lolah LOL tripped and fell. Both walked out of the ring.

Tosh qualified two horses for the handy—Autograph, who went first, had a fence down.

“I think that was a pretty careful jump,” said Tosh. “That was something where I took a minute and made sure I had a nice clean jump there.”

Tosh elected to jump all the high options on Canon Creek, a 13-year-old Holsteiner (Cancara—Tiffany S).

“You had some different options you could do with the vertical option and the trot jump,” he said. “My horse likes the right lead a little more so I chose a little different pattern [than on Autograph] that way. The last jump, to be honest with you, I was a little nervous. I didn’t want to have it down.”

Boyd was thrilled with “Crooner.” She got the ride on Crooks Show Jumping LLC’s gelding in May.

“John French as actually the first one to ever show him as a hunter,” she said. “Lauren Crooks of Crooks Show Jumping Stables had him, and Lauren’s pregnant and she said ‘Hey, how about you take him, do him in some derbies, let [Boyd’s daughter Elle] show him. He actually goes really well for Elle. She does him in the junior hunters. She said, just do him through derby finals and then we’ll see, maybe he’ll like that job. And clearly he did.”

Jack Towell, Boyd’s father and trainer at Finally Farm in Camden, South Carolina, chimed in.

“He’s kind of a ‘Sea Biscuit’ kind of thing,” he said. “The horse is too little. The trainer’s too fat. And he still [was second.]”

Stewart’s not a regular in the derby ring week-to-week—he estimates he does about two derbies a year and in fact shows so little in them he qualified as a Tier II rider—but getting the ride on Gochman Ventures LLC’s Daydream had him thinking about the class he was second in in 2010.

“The Gochmans were nice enough to let me show her and ride her,” he said. “I did the derby at Upperville [Virginia] for the first time and I did one a couple weeks ago at Princeton [New Jersey] where she won. She can do the big options easy, so that was my main criteria for having a horse and going back in the class. So on her, I feel very confident doing it.”

Find full results here.

Be sure you’re following along with the Chronicle on Facebook and Instagram @Chronofhorse. You can also read full analysis of hunter championship week in the Sept. 23 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse magazine.