MYAKKA CITY, Fla.--Canadian Olympic veteran Colleen Loach of Dunham, Quebec 0n FE Golden Eye. the only competitor to finish the event with a score in the 20s, won the CCI4*-S on March 29 at TerraNova.
Colleen Loach on FE Golden Eye (Photo by Shannon Brinkman)The Event at TerraNova started out with a closely ranked leaderboard, but the cross country course changed things on Sunday.
Loach added just two time faults to her score to finish on 27.5.
Mia Farley on Invictus placed second on 33.6, after moving up from eighth place after dressage.
Dan Kreitl, who had led the competition after dressage and stadium jumping, stuck to his plan of taking an easy canter around the cross country course as he prepares Carmango for the CCI4*-S at the Kentucky Three-Day Event next month.
With 16.4 time faults Kreitl finished on a final score of 41.4 to place third.
“GOLDIE is my favorite horse of all time, he’s the most easy horse to have around." said Loach. "This was his first four-star back after an injury; he just won the three-star at Bouckaert farm a couple of weeks ago and he won his event before that too. I wanted to make this four for four, this was his fourth win and a row, and we accomplished that, so that was pretty cool, but mainly I wanted to give him a confident, forward ride and we accomplished that as well.”
“He’s a very interesting mix of careful and brave," said Loach. "He can be quite spooky but is actually brave, he’s very sure of himself, a very confident horse and it’s up to me not to put him in a situation where he loses confidence. We have struggled in the past with making the time but I feel like now I can confidently ride him forward and he responds very well.”
“It’s really nice to win, but that can’t be what you base everything off of," she said. "If you have a plan, you don’t change it just because you have a chance at winning, and my plan was to practice going fast, so I did. I was lucky that some of the others weren’t practicing going fast, or maybe I wouldn’t have won, but that was what I needed to work on for me and that horse.”
Loach’s plan for Goldie is to do the CCI4*-S at Ocala to get a qualifying score and then the CCI4*-L at Tryon.
Invictus, whose barn name is Sammy, had colic surgery last September and this was his first competition back at this level.
“I wanted to go fast, but my priority wasn’t making the time with Sammy, I just rode as fast as I felt comfortable and when I put that pressure on him he gets better and better,” Farley said. “The course was a beautiful layout, Alec really opened up the course; in the past it was a lot more twisty.”
Sammy is also entered in Kentucky, in the 4*-S division.
“I would love to get a 4L done on him this spring, but we’re going to try to go competitive at Kentucky and then go from there,” she said.
Farley on Piña Colada 28 won the CCI3*-S on a final score of 29.6.
Loach placed second in CCI3*-S riding Chiaro Z Excalibur, finishing on 30.6 penalties, and Dani Sussman on Jos Bravio was third on 35.2.
“Piña was so good, I was so happy with her," said Farley. "I kind of pushed her from the second I left the start box and she went for it! It reminded me of how I get to ride my horse Phelps, kind of on a long rein, and she really hunts things, it’s awesome. The course was to the level – I had an intermediate horse I rode yesterday and some of the lines didn’t ride how I thought they would when I walked it, so that experience helped me go out on course with confidence today.”
“I’d love to do a four-star with her in the fall. She’s really special so I’m trying to take my time with her and secure all the details by 2027, so she’ll be great by 2028.”
“I’m at a loss for words because the event was fantastic all weekend, it was beautiful, and all the organizers are the friendliest people, everyone was just happy," said Farley. "Today was totally cross-country weather, a little fresh and excited, and it wasn’t as hot the past few days. My working students Emerson and Chandler came with me and it was a fun girls’ weekend.”
