TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.--Kent Farrington on Diakatisa opened the Great Lakes Equestrian Festival with a win in Thursday’s $31,100 CSI3* Welcome Stake.
Kent Farrington on Diakatisa (Photo by Naralie Suto)Though he had a great week to close the Spring Series with his top mount Greya, Farrington’s focus is back on the youngsters he is developing.
The Olympic silver medalist entered two 9-year-olds in Thursday’s class, and both were clean over Martin Otto’s course.
There were 19 clean, but Diakatisa won by over a second.
“She’s really learning the ropes and learning how to compete,” Farrington said
“She’s getting better and better at her job. It’ll be fun to see where she ends up in the future.”
“It’s hard to find good horses, so I try to pick talent when they’re young,” he said. “Some of them look a little bit wild and unrideable, we try to do the best we can to train them and some of them make it up the ranks into hopefully being stars for the future.”
“EVERY horse I’m riding has to learn to look for the fences and they really only learn to do that by competing in the ring and getting ring mileage,” he said.
He picks naturally fast horses, so the speed is always there, but the track is what he was able to manipulate to his advantage to take the top placing.
Brian Moggre on Johann FS Z was second, and Shane Sweetnam of Ireland was third on Honey Heart.
“We’re lucky we get to ride two horses here,” Farrington said. “It’s a great part of America and bringing up young horses that I can enter multiple horses in a class. It’s more to be able to produce young horses than anything else. Not too many times that I’m in a circumstance to beat myself so it’s a nice bonus.”
