Rodrigo Pessoa and Baloubet du Rouet were in top form again tonight at the Las Vegas World Invitational, taking home a cool $250,000 after after a spectacular speedy round over Olaf Petersen’s challenging jump-off course.
“It was a great start to this event,” said Pessoa. “The track was good, it was fair and the footing was perfect.”
His time of 29.64 couldn’t be beat. Great Britain’s Nick Skelton came closest aboard Arko III with 30.45.
Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum of Germany was the first to jump a clear round over Petersen’s demanding course. “I was pretty sure there’d be more clear rounds,” she said. “There are great horses here.”
This put her at a disadvantage as she then had to jump first in the jump-off. But her time of 31.53 was good enough for third, and she was pleased with Checkmate 4.
Only six riders qualified for the jump-off and no Americans made it. Lauren Hough came closest, taking down just the second fence in the triple combination and finishing in eighth place overall with Casadora. She almost missed her chance to jump as the ring crew was so efficient that they started taking down the course before she, the last rider in the order, entered the ring.
The American’s inexperience in indoor shows showed through as the turns got tighter tonight. Kim Prince was the trailblazer for the grand prix and had two rails down with Marlou. Georgina Bloomberg also had two down with Cim Christo, as did Anne Kursinski with Roxana 112.
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Laura Kraut took three rails with Anthem and Schuyler Riley had four with Ilian.
It was an even more disappointing night for Richard Spooner who had a stop at the first element of the double after Quirino had to stretch hard for the maximum triple bar four strides before it. McLain Ward retired on course after four rails down.
Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat was the fastest rider and driver in the earlier ride and drive competition. This unusual class started with a short show jumping round. Then the riders got off their horses and strapped into a Cadillac to drive a cones obstacle course, similar to combined driving.
Guerdat was by far the fastest coming in with a time of 73.49 seconds even after adding 2 seconds for a ball that fell off the cone in the driving portion. He took steep angled lines to the fences with Hermes Rouge and then clearly put the pedal to the metal while driving. He was rewarded for his efforts with a new Dodge truck.
Fellow Swiss rider Markus Fuchs looked as if he might challenge Guerdat after his speedy jumping round on Royal Charmer, but he failed to put the car in gear and sat there for costly seconds trying to figure out why his car wouldn’t move.
Schuyler Riley was highest placed American rider, finishing in sixth with John Endicott’s Punker.
