ust missing the top check with Lorenzo in the $100,000 Budweiser Upperville Jumper Classic (Va.) the week before may have honed Anne Kursinski’s desire just enough heading into the Wachovia Jumper Classic, held at Frank and Stacia Madden’s Beacon Hill Show Stables in Colts Neck, N.J.

As the last to go in the jump-off of the show’s $50,000 Bud-weiser Grand Prix on June 18, she and Scott Hakim’s Roxana 112 snatched the win from Laura Chapot and Samantha.

“Last Sunday in Upperville, I was too slow to the first fence, and I let Katie Prudent beat me,” said Kursinski, 47, of Flemington, N.J. “I said I’d get her this week!”

Prudent had handed Humour Du Parc’s reins to husband Henri Prudent at Beacon Hill, and the duo posted a four-fault first round with a foot in the water, so Kursinski’s good-natured vendetta was redirected to the other four jump-off qualifiers. After Icon and Peter Leone, Little Big Man and Chapot, and Hidden Creek’s Oscar and Margie Engle each dropped a rail, Chapot, winner of the class the past two years, posted the first clear effort of the deciding round on Samantha, in a time of 38.68 seconds, which looked beatable to Kursinski.

“I could have left a stride out at the big vertical, but Laura Chapot didn’t, so I knew I had a little room,” said Kursinski, who let the 12-year-old Roxana 112 (Rodgau–Loret) open up more at other points in the round. “She’s a Hessen mare, but she can gallop like a Thoroughbred.

“We really fit each other like a glove,” she continued. “In the first round and jump-off, 90 percent of the time, I can have a real plan with her and it rides just like that, unless I screw something up!”

Partners for two years, she and Hakim’s mare have posted numerous top-three finishes, including wins at last year’s $60,000 Idle Dice Classic in Wellington, Fla., and last month’s $50,000 Empire State Grand Prix at Old Salem Farm (N.Y.).

With a time of 37.22 seconds, Roxana’s round was the quickest of all the jump-off efforts at Beacon Hill, and the win vaulted Kursinski to the top of the $30,000 Budweiser Six-Pack Rider Bonus Standings halfway through the series. The bonus will be awarded to the top money-earning rider from a six-show series; the final events of which take place at Lake Placid (N.Y.) on July 2, the Pennsylvania National on Oct. 21, and the Syracuse Invitational (N.Y.) on Nov. 4.

Before she can focus on any six-packs, Kursinski is heading to Europe with Roxana, having been selected for the third leg of the Samsung Super League tour. Leaving in early July, they will be competing at the CSIOs at Falsterbo (Sweden), Hickstead (England), and Dublin (Ireland). Their outing at Beacon Hill proved to be the perfect appetizer for the trip.

“The somewhat European flavor here, with the double liverpools and all that, is the perfect preparation for Europe,” she said, praising Beacon Hill’s efforts in organizing the show, which benefits the Virtua Health Foundation. “We were talking about it in the riders’ tent. If only all shows could be this fun, instead of the eight-ring rat race. You can actually enjoy the show.”

Sunday Belongs To Tuesday
As sixth of seven to go in the jump-off for the $15,000 Junior/ Amateur-Owner Grand Prix Allyson Hawkes’ game plan for her 10-year-old, Dutch Warm-blood mare, Tuesday, was simple.

“My strategy was pretty much, go as fast as you possibly can,” she said. “Carolyn Kelly from our barn was the first to go [on La Luna 26], and I was able to watch her and I thought she was pretty fast. Then I heard the girl after her beat her, then the girl after her beat her. I thought, ‘If Carolyn just got beaten twice and I thought she was going fast, I’ve got to go really freaking fast!’ “

Tuesday complied with the request, edging ahead of leader Brianne Goutal and Mon Gamin by less than 0.2 seconds and staying in the lead after a final effort by Clara Lindner and Shannon was too slow. Goutal held second place, with her sister, Clementine, just behind on Rastella.

“Tuesday is incredibly careful, but she’s also really brave. A lot of times with careful horses, if you get a bad distance as an amateur, they’ll stop on you, but she just goes no matter what. She always tries her hardest,” said Hawkes, of Jersey City, N.J. “The last two fences you could just run at, so I knew if I just gave her the reins and kicked, she’d do her best not to hit them.”

Hawkes, a lawyer specializing in private equity work with the asset management arm of AIG Global Investment Group, is a true amateur, only able to ride on the weekends, training with Chris Kappler.

“It’s a great escape, but the hard part is that I work pretty long hours during the week. I’ll be putting in 15-hour days and be totally exhausted and have to get up at the crack of dawn to go to a horse show and show all weekend,” she said. “In Florida, the high amateur-owners typically go during the week, so I have to take vacation to show, or I do the mediums a lot because they show on the weekend.”

At 33, Hawkes is hardly an old fogey, but she still gets a little kick out of holding her own against her younger counterparts in the division. “Most of the kids in the class are 19, 20, 21. I looked around when we were walking the course and thought, ‘Ha–I’m older than all of you!’ ” she said.

Little Tom Wins Big
Despite his relatively diminutive stature, Little Tom, a 15.3-hand Irish Connemara, showed he could hang with the big boys, winning Beacon Hill’s adult amateur jumper classic and its qualifier with owner Patricia Diamond Hennessy. The 11-year-old gelding sped to the top of the 14-horse jump-off, registering a time more than 2 seconds faster than second-placed Susannah Wise and Louis.

“It was a real horse race out there!” said Hennessy, of Kintnersville, Pa. “There are eight placings, but there were already eight double-clears when I went, so you had to go clear, but you still had to go fast to get a ribbon. You just had to go for it.”

Hennessy, who gets help from Kappler, Holly Mitten, Callan Solem and Carol Thompson, has been making quite an impression lately with her little horse, having earned the adult amateur jumper championship at Devon (Pa.) in May.

She bought “Tom” three years ago, originally as a resale prospect. “I was supposed to sell him because he was more than I could really spend, but I started showing him and he was winning back his entries plus some. I thought, ‘This is really fun–I haven’t done this before!’ ” she said.

Naturally quick and smart, Tom has responded well to Hennessy’s focus on flatwork to improve his rideability to the jumps. “I always thought he was a good horse, but he was never as consistent before. He’s such a solid citizen now,” she said. “This is the horse I always knew he was.”

Hennessy runs a horse transport business with her husband Kevin, and her competition schedule revolves around work. “We’re going to California, so I’ll be taking some time off. A lot of times we transport horses to a show, but I don’t always get to compete,” she said. “I have to go for quality instead of quantity!”

Olivia Goossen, of Howell, N.J., faced a daunting jump-off field of 12 competitors on the way to winning the children’s jumper classic with Olympia Farm’s Inca. Goossen and the Mecklenburg mare, both 14, posted the only clear jump-off round faster than 30 seconds to take the top prize.

“Our first day here was kind of rocky, but the second day we got into the swing of the ring. I worked hard at keeping her straight because there were so many refusals and focused on keeping a regular pace,” she explained. “In the jump-off, I tried to regulate her stride and shave off all the turns.”

She began leasing the mare eight months ago from her trainer, Hugo Huesca, with the goal of moving from the children’s jumpers to the juniors next year.

“She’s a brat–she’ll kick the stall down–but she’s excellent to ride. Even though she gets obnoxious sometimes, she’s a very good jumper, which makes up for it,” said Goossen, who’s ridden at Olympia, in Farmingdale, N.J., since she was 9.