Kelley Farmer couldn’t have had a much better trip to the Lexington Spring Encore. She topped the $10,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby on her newest partner, Praise, and rounded out the top three on Madison Free’s Bases Loaded and Nancy Amling’s Taken.

Praise secured the blue ribbon on May 6 with a spot-on handy round that elevated him from third. Not bad for a horse who hadn’t competed seriously as a hunter until six weeks earlier. Praise caught Farmer’s eye during Week 10 of the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival when she saw Wendy Ritter Peralta riding back to the barn from the 1.30-meter ring.

When Farmer commented in passing on her striking mount, Peralta stopped her, insisting she’d been meaning to call Farmer about campaigning the Dutch Warm-blood as a hunter. Farmer convinced her partner Larry Glefke to come to the farm that afternoon, and within 15 minutes of Farmer throwing a leg over the horse’s back, Glefke was handing over a check.

Selma and Kenneth Garber bought half the horse from Glefke a few weeks later. For Glefke, Praise’s appeal was obvious: When he looked at the horse he could picture him galloping around a derby course.

“He has a quality I look for in any derby horse,” he said. “He can turn back on the biggest vertical in the world, and Kelley doesn’t have to worry about protecting his front end.” The 9-year-old stallion (Now Or Never M—Ecaranda, Saros) won two classes that next week, finished fifth in the first round of the $50,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby in Welling-ton, Fla., then went on to overall second at the Aiken Spring Classic (S.C.) edition.

Farmer credits that immediate success to the horse’s sensible nature and knack for jumping in picture-perfect form over every fence no matter what the approach or distance.

“He should have been in the hunter ring all along,” she said. “The transition was super easy for him.” J. Blake Alder of Germantown, Tenn., built the relatively inviting tracks in the Wiley Arena at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington for the 37 derby competitors.

The courses included a narrow brush Aiken, a hedge and plenty of greenery around the ring for the evening class. Both tracks included mostly single fences and long broken lines, as well as a two-stride in-and-out of oxers set with a high and low option. The highest options on course—one of those oxers and another natural oxer set as the out of a broken line—stretched up to 4’3″, with the rest of the course set at 3’9″ to 4′.

Taken set the standard in Round 1, earning the highest scores of 89 and 92. Last year’s handy winners at Lexington, Jason Berry and Stetson, came closest to that mark, riding to second in the classic round. The handy round kicked off with two rollbacks in a row and included a trot fence with a turn back to an option of two oxers. Farmer called on her mount’s rideability to find the tightest turns and trusted his jumper instincts to leave the rails in place along the way. “He can jump and turn so well,” said Farmer, Keswick, Va.

“I was almost sideways on top of that third jump, and he can just curl over it. It’s never a mystery to him when I turn back to a big jump.”

John Roper, who judged the class along-side Carleton Brooks, Peggy Beachy and Claudia Rowland, was impressed with Farmer’s execution of her chosen track. “If anyone can do a handy, Kelley Farmer can do a handy,” said Roper, Frank-lin, Tenn.

“A lot of people do inside turns, but she does inside turns going forward. She rode it almost like a timed jumper class, and that horse jumped beautifully from the start to the finish of every jump. When you’re riding that forward, you’re risking a hard rub or a missed lead change, but, as they say, no guts, no glory.”

That natural bravado has helped Farmer leap into the lead in the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association’s new rider, money won, standings, with an $18,000 gap separating her from the second-placed rider. She and Glefke have been campaigning horses seriously in the series since its inception, and Praise’s win brings the tally of Lane Change-trained derby winners to six. “I’m very proud of the fact that we do this on sales horses,” said Glefke.

“If they’re going to stay in our barn I try to make sure they’re derby types. I think that’s the coming age of this business. Lots of people have a nice horse they can do this with, but to have six or seven at this level is pretty cool. It’s a really fun thing for me.” Praise, formerly known as Vallado, got his start in the dressage breeding classes under the ownership of Silver Creek Farms.

He dabbled in the hunters briefly, then worked his way up the jumper ranks, competing through the 1.35-meter division. When Farmer took over the ride, she already had the right name picked out.

“I always joke that all men feel they need to be praised for acceptable behavior,” said Farmer.

“So when I got a stallion I knew exactly what we’d call him.” While Glefke and Farmer’s Lane Change Farm isn’t in the breeding business (“We prefer to adopt,” said Farmer), Glefke hopes to pass on Praise’s ability to the next generation by standing him at stud next season.