He draws from a deep bench to pull off a win at the all-jumper competition in New Jersey.

With five horses in the featured $10,000 Princeton Jumper Classic, Jeffery Welles was by far the busiest rider at the Princeton Show Jumping June Classic in Princeton, N.J., June 25-28.

His winning odds paid off in spades, but the victory he finally clinched after riding three mounts in the jump-off came aboard his least likely horse—a new ride.

“I just got RMW New Day,” Welles said. “[His owner] Mary Shirley has an injury, so she sent him up from Florida two weeks ago. He’s a great horse—a top-class grand prix horse who’s well seasoned and very straightforward and careful. I took him into Saturday’s level 5 class to school him and get used to him, and he went clear.”

That easy effort proved a harbinger of things to come for Welles and the 11-year-old French-bred gelding. A day later, the pair came out at the top of the 26-horse order-of-go, and they duplicated their flawless round in the classic.

Welles and RMW New Day returned first in the jump-off, posting the time to beat from the get-go—40.94 seconds—over Andrew Philbrick and Kim Perlman’s eight-effort course.

“I galloped and made tight turns with him. He’s a big horse but really handy,” Welles said of the 16.3-hand gelding. “The younger, greener horses after that had trouble with the tight turns and short combinations of vertical, vertical and tight rollback.”

Two trips later it was Welles’ student, D.J. Volandre on Tequila, who came closest to Welles’ time, with a clear round in 43.27 seconds for the runner-up spot.

Welles also piloted Abigail Wexner’s Umberto and Noel Gross’ Merlin and Aries around the classic course. The fifth and last of his rides in the late Sunday afternoon class, Wexner’s Zycaria, missed the elimination round after pulling a single rail.

Even though Welles had ample opportunity for the win, neither of his more familiar mounts could improve upon RMW New Day’s jump-off performance.

With the 10-year-old Umberto, Welles caught two rails. Aries, an 8-year-old gelding, gave the crowd a scary moment when he took a big leap at fence 9, bringing down a rail. But he stopped the timers at 44.28 seconds for fifth place. And the young Merlin, a 7-year-old coming off a second-placed finish in a young jumper class earlier in the week, dropped a pair of rails in the classic for ninth place.

Welles noted that his support team deserved credit for working together like clockwork to ready his horses on Sunday.

“I could do this class on so many horses because I have a great staff, and they get things ready for me really well,” said Welles, who brought 16 horses to Hunter Farms, the site of the all-jumper show. “Ed Copeland, my assistant, got the horses loosened up, so they were already warmed up when I got on [for the jump-off]. I could canter around once and start jumping. Today, I couldn’t have done it without him.”

Little Tom Wins Big

For the second consecutive year, Little Tom and Patricia Hennessey, of Kintnersville, Pa., blazed their way to a win in the children’s/adult jumper classic. The pair topped 10 rivals with a clear trip over the jump-off course with an unbeatable time of 38.83 seconds.

“He’s done quite well here,” said Hennessey, 42, who assists her husband, Kevin Hennessey, in his horse transportation business. “I think he likes this horse show.”

Patricia and her 14-year-old Canadian-bred gelding were also the high-point winners of the children’s/adult jumper division after winning the children’s/adult speed class.

She bought Little Tom as a sales prospect six years ago, but he’s long since worked his way into her heart. The 15.3-hand gelding was an unplanned surprise from the beginning—his dam, a Canadian Connemara pony mare, managed to get loose and meet an Irish Sport Horse stallion named Thomas Patrick, nicknamed “Big Tom.”

The resulting accident, named Little Tom, moved between trainers for several years until a friend of Patricia’s asked her to work with the horse six years ago. Then, when his owner went off to college, Little Tom was put up for sale. She snatched up the opportunity.

The pony side of Little Tom’s personality made him difficult to ride and somewhat unappealing to many prospective buyers.

“Originally, the price for him was more than I could afford, so we were going to resell him,” said Patricia, who trains with Chris Kappler.

With a little negotiating, however, she was finally able to buy him, but their partnership still took several years to form.

“When I first started to show him, he was very quick, but not too careful,” she recalled.

They often just made it into the ribbons. But three years ago, in 2006, the pair began winning consistently. Last year they topped five of the 11 classes they contested at Spruce Meadows (Alta.). “He’s definitely in the game to win,” she said with a smile.

Tight Turns Versus Speed

Francesca Bolfo scored an impressive hat trick in the junior/amateur-owner classic at Princeton, taking her third victory in the class in as many years. She and her Top Limit seized the lead in an eight-horse jump-off with a clear trip in 43.59 seconds.

Only two others, Shannon McGrath with Rumours (44.83) and Cody Parker on Romino S (48.28), gave her a significant challenge, but neither could take the blue from her.

“[It was] a matter of keeping my turns tidy—tight turns versus speed,” she explained. “I was lucky to fly to the last fence [a vertical]. He’s huge and really responsive to my leg, so he just moved right up. What had seemed like an impossible distance [to the last fence] turned into a reality.”

She and “BoBo” warmed up with a second-placed finish in the level 5 class on Thursday and then won the level 5 class on Saturday. The bay warmblood is 17 hands, but Bolfo balances him out at 5’10” herself.

Bolfo, 19, New York, N.Y., purchased BoBo last year. “I tried him at the end of Florida and started with him in the summer. If I put in the time and commitment, and if things play out right, we’ll move on to bigger and better things,” she said. 

At age 12, Bolfo had only been riding “casually” when she bought a horse from Kappler and began riding with him. She moved into the children’s jumpers and then on to the junior jumpers, with a little equitation mixed in.

Bolfo balances riding with her studies at Swarthmore College (Pa.) where she’s a sophomore. She hopes to qualify for several amateur jumper finals this year with BoBo and Venus TR. The latter horse carried her to her junior/amateur owner classic win at Princeton last year and took sixth place in the open welcome class at this year’s show.

All In The Family

Gregory Volandre-Stella and his Zidan vanquished his older rivals in the low children’s/adult jumper classic, mastering the turns in the jump-off like a professional. That’s a path the 13-year-old, eighth-grade student hopes to follow in the future.

Volandre-Stella and his 16.1-hand, 8-year-old Irish Sport Horse made short work of their courses, besting 25 competitors. In the jump-off, they turned in a clear round no others could catch.

Going against adults didn’t faze Volandre-Stella, because, “there’s no difference between [riding against] kids my age and adults,” he noted.

That confident attitude is no surprise, coming from trainer Gina Volandre’s son. She shares coaching duties with Welles and her older son D.J., and she’s watched Gregory compete through the pony jumpers with his Hooligan for two years while also showing his hunter pony, Sunkist.

“He’s been riding for 13 years, since the day he came home from the hospital,” Gina said.

She found Zidan, his current horse, at KEC Stud of Ireland with the help of friend Cormack Kennedy.

After a successful start with Zidan in the low children’s jumpers in Florida, Gregory said, “I’m hoping to move up [to the highs] very soon.”

Gregory has attended the Hunter Farms shows the past two years with his family from their home base in Norwell, Mass. Over the past seven years, the eight-hour journey to New Jersey has developed into an annual pilgrimage.

“It’s good jumper competition here, and the classes fill,” said Gina, who teaches a variety of students at her Hunterbrook Stable. “It’s also a wonderful facility. Everything is great about it—the footing, the atmosphere and the professionalism of the staff, and it’s family friendly.”