Equestrian: Rising Star Lucy Davis and Nemo 199 win the $50,000 HITS CSI-W Grand Prix Lucy Davis, one of the youngest Grand Prix riders on the HITS winter circuit, captured her biggest win of the season when she won Saturday night’s $50,000 HITS CSI-W Grand Prix.
Photo Courtesy: equestrisol.com/JumpShot - Lucy Davis and Nemo 119 2010 $35,000 Blenheim Spring Classic II Grand Prix.
Lucy Davis, one of the youngest Grand Prix riders on the HITS winter circuit, captured her biggest win of the season when she won Saturday night’s $50,000 HITS CSI-W Grand Prix, presented by Pfizer Animal Health, aboard Old Oak Farm’s Nemo 119 to highlight Desert Circuit V at the HITS Desert Horse Park in Thermal, California.
Davis (Los Angeles, California) got the best of the 26 starters that challenged International Course Designer Olaf Petersen’s (Paehl, Germany) first-round course and then the five that advanced to the jump-off en route to taking the victory gallop.
Davis has been on quite a hot streak lately. The 18-year-old reached show-jumping glory when she won the 2009 EY-Cup Final at the CSI Frankfurt in Germany, propelled by a successful season at HITS Thermal. At the 2010 HITS Desert Circuit, Davis captured the $25,000 California Horsetrader Junior/Amateur-Owner Jumper Classic High. Riding her EY-Cup partner, True Love, the pair beat out 53 other starters to capture the blue ribbon and also finished third aboard her partner in last night’s World Cup class, Nemo 119. Her first Grand Prix win ever came last summer at the Memorial Day Classic aboard True Love.
“Lucy is an extremely dedicated and talented rider,” said her trainer, Marcus Beerbaum. "Tonight she went toe-to-toe with some of the best riders in the world and came out on top. I couldn’t be more proud of her.”
In last night’s feature class, Kirsten Coe (Johnson, South Carolina) and Ilan Ferder’s Tristan, who won Thursday’s $31,000 HITS Welcome Classic, presented by Pfizer Animal Health, picked up right where they left off when they showed in the third spot of the class and scored the first clear round of the night.
At the end of the first round, five horse-and-rider combinations were left standing tall as the standing-room-only crowd that lined the indoor arena and the sold-out Charles Owen VIP Club settled in for the jump-off. “I don’t think tonight was the biggest course of the circuit,” said Petersen. “But most of the riders told me it looked like the most technical one of the circuit after they walked it.”
Coe and Tristan wasted no time setting the Great American Time to Beat when they started the jump-off coming home clear in 44.78 seconds. At the end of the class, the duo placed third making it a great week for Coe, who traveled to HITS Thermal for the first time looking for valuable FEI World Cup Points and to get a jump-start on qualifying for the Pfizer $1 Million Grand Prix.
After Rich Fellers and Flexible, owned by Harry and Mollie Chapman, failed to go clear, Saer Coulter (San Francisco, California) entered the ring riding Copernicus Stables’ Springtime. The pair brought the crowd to its feet when they crossed the timers in 42.96 seconds to set the new pace and took the lead.
