WELLINGTON,Fla.--Amy Millar of Canada 0n Christiano won a specially designed $5,000 Evening Welcome class on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at the Winter Equestrian Festival.
Callie Schott on Garant (Photo by Megan Giese Media)The class was designed to allow those competing in the Nations Cup on Saturday evening to get their horses into the ring under lights and before an evening crowd, a situation that unnerves some horses the first time it occurs.
Eight nations, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Ireland, Israel, Mexico and the U.S., are competing in the Nations Cup, which begins at 6:30 Saturday evening.
While a few people chose to use the class just to get their horses in the ring and pulled up after a few fences,the majority jumped both phases of the Two Phase class, although only a few really went for speed over the second phase.
From a starting field of 36, 23 were clean over both phases.
Millar finished in 57.18 to win by a whopping eight seconds over Samuel Parot of Chile on Lisbeth TR, clean in 65.50, and Nicholas Gamboa of Colombia on Twilight was third in 65.78.
Some individuals will be using the Nations Cup to qualify for future international competitions.
THE U.S.TEAM for Saturday includes Karl Cook of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., Marilyn Little of Wellington, Fla., Callie Schott of Wellington, Fla.,and McLain Ward of Brewster, N.Y.
Little on La Contessa jumped phase one and retired, and Cook, who will ride Caracole de la Roque Saturday, knows the horse well and chose not to compete in the class.
The Irish always make a big night of it, taking over a portion of the arena and cheering loudly for their team.
Ireland will field a very strong team, and Tom Wachman, Darragh Kenny, Cian O'Connor and Jordan Coyle have been winning a lot, so it may be a hard job for the Irish chef d'equipe to chose his team
