WELLINGTON, Fla.--Daniel Deusser of German on Scuderia 1918 Tobago Z won the $75,000 WEF Challenge Cup Round VII CSI5* on Thursday, Feb. 24 at the Winter Equestrian Festival.
Daniel Deusser on Scueria 918 Tobago Z 22 (Photo by Sportfot)Also serving as the qualifier for Saturday evening's $406,000 Grand Prix CSI5*, a field of 57 was reduced to 10 that went in the jump-off.
Ireland’s Shane Sweetnam on Alejandro was first in the jump-off and was clean in 38.25 seconds.
Deusser was third to go third and beat Sweetnam by clocking in almost a second faster at 37.42 seconds, a time the rest of the field couldn't better.
“I chose this horse for today because he is in very good shape again,” said Deusser. “He had a few months off last year, and then when we jumped him here for the first time two weeks ago, he showed us he was feeling good.”
“After the first round, I had such a good feeling about the ride that I actually was really trying to win when I went in for the jump-off,” said Deusser. “He is a very flexible horse, and he doesn’t care if you turn him short, so the jump-off was quite nice for me. I thought the course designer did a good job today; it was tricky and difficult enough, and the time allowed was short but not impossible.”
“He leaves for Europe next week so this will probably be his last show of the season in the States,” said Deusser. “He seems to be in a pretty good mood, so the plan is to use him for the grand prix as well.”
Lorenzo de Lucaof Italy on F One USA finished in 37.55 seconds to place second, which then bumped Sweetnam into third.
ASHLEY VOGEL won the $6,000 Palm Beach Equine Clinic 1.45m CSI2* over 23 horse-and rider-competitors on Thursday morning, going clean in 62.65 seconds in the speed class as the fastest of seven clear rounds.
“I thought it was a really good course,” said Vogel of Wellington. “There were only so many clear, and people were getting results even with four faults, so I think the course was challenging enough.”
“There were lots of rollbacks, and there were places in the course to be really tight and neat,” said Vogel. “She’s naturally very fast across the ground too, so I think that helped.
“There was also a line against the left side of the ring on the outside that was a little shadowy,” she said. “It was tall and square coming in which I think caught a lot of horses, but she jumped it great. I’m really happy with her.”
“She was my first high junior jumper to be competitive with,” said Vogel. “She’s the horse I’ve had in my group the longest, so we have a very special connection. She’s really neat, has a huge heart, and tries really hard for me out there.”
“In the last year and a half, I’ve gotten a lot of results on her, some speed classes and things, and now I’m starting to step up into some of the FEI classes and she’s really excelling,” she said. “I believe I’ll be doing some more speeds throughout circuit though, some 1.40m classes, some 1.45m, and hopefully we’ll see some more results and mileage for both of us, so I’m really excited for that.”
Second went to Quentin Judge on HH Qualido in a time of 63.01 seconds, and Maria Costawas third on Iceman B SFN with a time of 66.58 seconds.
